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Tag: opioid epidemic

  • Opioid Addiction Isn't Just A Rural Problem

    Opioid Addiction Isn't Just A Rural Problem

    While the epidemic has been framed as one that mostly affects rural America, new research shows that overdose rates are actually higher in urban areas.

    The common narrative of the national opioid crisis has been that this “disease of despair” has affected rural areas the most.

    However, a new working paper argues that economic depression and access to opioids are the biggest determinants of overdose rates in both rural and urban areas. 

    “I really do want to push back against this cliche that addiction does not discriminate,” Shannon Monnat, the paper’s author and a sociologist at Syracuse University, told Pacific Standard. “The physiological processes that underlie addiction themselves may not discriminate, but the factors that put people in communities at higher risk are are not spatially random.”

    Looking at non-Hispanic whites and controlling for demographics, Monnat found that overdose rates were highest in urban areas. The rate decreased the further one moved from cities, a trend that held true for all racial groups. Overall, urban counties had an average of 6.2 more deaths per 100,000 people than rural counties. 

    Interestingly, supply and demand interacted differently in rural and urban settings. In the city, supply of drugs seemed to have the biggest effect on overdose rates. In rural areas, economic distress was the stronger predictor of overdose rates.

    “A lot of what’s going on here are regional effects,” she said. “You get regional levels of despair and distress that seemed to reinforce and exacerbate the problem.”

    Monnat did find that some of the things associated with rural living were connected with an increased risk for overdose. For example, areas with an economy heavily dependent on mining or the service industries had higher rates of overdose. Controlling for how many drugs were supplied to an area, places with higher economic distress had higher overdose rates. 

    “What that means is that drug mortality rates aren’t higher in economically distressed places simply because they’ve had a greater supply of opioid prescribing there,” she said. “There’s something about economic distress in and of itself that helps to explain the variation that we’re seeing across the country and the magnitude of the drug crisis.”

    Places hardest hit by the crisis, like West Virginia, had both economic vulnerabilities and an excessive supply of opioids, Monnat said.

    “It’s no coincidence that widespread opioid prescribing first started in the most economically vulnerable places of the country—there was vulnerability there. These places had been primed to be vulnerable to opioids, which are drugs that numb both physical and mental pain, through decades of economic and social decline.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Small Town Tackles Opioid Crisis With Treatment, Compassion

    Small Town Tackles Opioid Crisis With Treatment, Compassion

    Despite its small size, Little Falls has taken control of their drug epidemic in by allocating $1.4 million in grants in the past five years.

    As a 25-year-old in Little Falls, Minnesota, Monica Rudolph would steal money from her parent’s savings, little by little, so she could support her heroin use. 

    Eventually, according to BuzzFeed News, the money was gone. Monica’s parents discovered the empty box in their home, and that’s when her mother began calling treatment centers. But she kept hitting head ends — treatment centers saying they were closed for the weekend, or that they could not take Monica for a few weeks. 

    That’s when her mother decided to call the local hospital—and it worked. Monica was connected with a substance abuse counselor and was told to come in the next day to begin treatment.  

    “My hometown of 8,000 people was the one place in the state that picked up the phone,” Monica said. “Think of all the people like me who don’t have that hometown.”

    Despite its small size, Little Falls has taken control of their drug epidemic in by allocating $1.4 million in grants in the past five years, BuzzFeed News reports. The money has been spent on limiting refills, increasing the access to medications to treat substance use disorder, putting treatment ahead of jail and taking basic public health measures. 

    The efforts paid off. BuzzFeed News reports that visits to the ER for painkillers—once the top reason for visits—isn’t even in the top 20 now. The hospital now has 100 patients on substance use disorder medications and has helped 626 people taper off opioids. 

    “One thing led to another,” Kurt DeVine, one of Monica’s doctors, told BuzzFeed News. “We realized we had to do a lot of things we weren’t doing, and that we had to do them together, or it wasn’t going to work.”

    Now, DeVine and his colleague, Heather Bell, lead online seminars about how Little Falls has tackled the opioid crisis. They help towns to think bigger than just one thing.

    “They get Narcan, or they get one little project and they think that is going to fix it,” DeVine tells BuzzFeed News. “There is no easy answer. It is a lot of work. If we were doing only one thing, just Narcan, our problem would be as bad as anywhere else. You have to do it all.”

    In Little Falls specifically, the hospital formed a “Care Team,” made up of a social worker, a nurse, two doctors, and a pharmacist. The team’s focus is to help patients like Monica. They have also changed their thinking from treating substance use disorder as a crime to considering it a disease. 

    “If you find a person’s urine has a bunch of meth and not their pain meds, you make the assumption they are selling their pain meds to get meth,” Bell told BuzzFeed News. “But we don’t kick them out of our clinic. We say, ‘OK, what is going on? Do you need help?’ Then we get them into treatment.”

    Now, Monica is taking the opportunity to give back to the community that helped her recover. Through training in a federal program, she will now serve as the hospital’s first “peer” counselor. 

    “My life has come full circle,” she told BuzzFeed News. “I’m really excited to give something back.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Google Maps Now Points Users To Drug Disposal Sites

    Google Maps Now Points Users To Drug Disposal Sites

    The tech giant aims to help people with opioid prescriptions get rid of excess pills in the hopes of preventing them from being abused.

    Tech giant Google wants to do its part to combat the opioid epidemic by making it easy for users to find places where the can drop off unneeded medications.

    If people search for “drug drop off near me” or “medication disposal near me,” Google Maps will find nearby pharmacies, hospitals, or government buildings where they can dispose of pills that could otherwise be abused.

    The project was part of a cooperative effort between Google, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and state governments as well as private pharmacy companies like Walgreens and CVS.

    “Addiction to opioids can start after just five days of use, and the majority of prescription drug abuse (53%) starts with drugs obtained from family and friends,” wrote Dane Glasglow, Google Maps’ vice president of product, in a blog post. “That’s why Google wants to help people get rid of leftover pills that are sitting in people’s medicine cabinets, and to make drug disposal locations easier for people to find with a simple search.”

    Such medications are usually prescribed for good reason, especially in cases of recovery after surgeries for ailments like broken bones, burns, or serious illness.

    “Treating pain adequately helps recovery, reduces the downstream psychiatric and psychological effects,” said Dr. Elliot J. Krane. “In the absence of risk factors or concerns about the child’s home environment, I am more concerned about deleterious effects of untreated pain than I am about creating somebody with substance abuse disorder.”

    Some families might think it’s clever to keep these powerful painkillers for future use, but health experts warn that just having the medications in the house can boost the potential for abuse.

    “You should not keep them for use for a future time,” Dr. Linda J. Mason said. “These are for a specific surgery.”

    Google’s ease in involving itself in such an intervention should come as no surprise to those who are aware of the massive amounts of data the tech giant has kept on its users. A study has found that Google can predict the onset of overdoses in a given area by tracking certain search terms.

    “For a number of fiscal and practical reasons, data on heroin use have been of poor quality, which has hampered the ability to halt the growing epidemic,” the researchers wrote. “Internet search data, such as those made available by Google Trends, have been used as a low-cost, real-time data source for monitoring and predicting a variety of public health outcomes.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • FDA May Recommend Naloxone Be Co-Prescribed With Opioids

    FDA May Recommend Naloxone Be Co-Prescribed With Opioids

    The “co-prescribing” recommendation would apply to patients who are at high risk of overdose, including people who take a high-dose opioid.

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering recommending that people who receive an opioid prescription are also offered a prescription for naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug. 

    The move is intended to reduce deaths from opioid overdose, but some people say that the effort is misguided. 

    The so-called co-prescribing recommendation would apply to patients who are at high risk of overdose, including people who take a high-dose opioid, have a history of addiction or have sleep apnea, according to CNN.

    Kristy Shepard, a Virginia patient who uses opioids, didn’t know that she had a naloxone prescription waiting for her at the pharmacy. She said that her doctor didn’t give her a heads up about the state’s new co-prescribing recommendations. Other states, including California and Ohio have made similar recommendations, but Shepard doesn’t understand why. 

    “It’s so silly. I didn’t feel like I needed it. Unless I plan to hurt myself, I’m not likely to overdose,” she said. 

    However, Dr. Nathan Schlicher, who is on Washington state’s opioid task force and works as an emergency medicine physician, said this is a common misunderstanding. 

    “You can take pain meds responsibly, and you can be at risk for an accidental overdose even when you’re doing everything right,” he said. Washington also has a co-prescribing recommendation. 

    If the FDA recommends co-prescribing, the need for naloxone would increase by 48 million dosages annually, according to an FDA report. That could be a big financial incentive to drug makers, who have spent money lobbying for similar efforts at the state level, especially in California. 

    Some opponents point out that having naloxone on hand only works if the people taking opioids have someone around who could administer the drug if they overdose. 

    Katie O’Leary, who deals with pain, said that talking about overdose risk and carrying naloxone should be a conversation between individual providers and their patients, not a federal requirement. 

    “So many patients already jump through so many hoops to get their meds,” she said. “And if you live alone and don’t have family or friends to take care of you, the naloxone might not be something that could actually help.” 

    Dr. Farshad Ahadian, medical director at the University of California San Diego Health Center for Pain Medicine, agreed, saying, “Most providers probably feel that it’s better for physicians to self-regulate rather than practice medicine from the seat of the legislature. The truth is there’s been a lot of harm from opioids, a lot of addiction. It’s undeniable that we have to yield to that and to recognize that public safety is critical.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Pot Legalization Moves Forward In New Hampshire Despite Opposition

    Pot Legalization Moves Forward In New Hampshire Despite Opposition

    High overdose rates in the state has been cited as one of the main reasons opponents are against legalizing cannabis.

    Despite strong opposition in a state reeling from the opioid epidemic, marijuana legalization came closer to New Hampshire on Thursday (Feb. 21), when a bill to legalize cannabis in the state moved forward by just one vote. 

    According to New Hampshire Public Radio, the measure passed the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee by a vote of 10 to 9. It will now be considered by the full House of Representatives, but Governor Chris Sununu, who recently started his second term, has vowed to veto the bill if it gets that far. 

    New Hampshire, known as a popular vacation destination because of its scenic lakes and mountains, has in recent years become known for a more sinister reason: the prevalence of opioid addiction in the state. New Hampshire has one of the highest per-capita overdose rates in the country.

    At the same time, the Granite State has been a holdout in the march toward legalization of recreational marijuana, becoming the last New England state to ban cannabis use. 

    Sununu and others in New Hampshire feel it would be irresponsible to legalize cannabis when the state is fighting what often seems like a losing battle against opioids. According to The New York Times, the governor spoke out strongly against legalization last fall. 

    “When we are dealing with opioids as the single biggest health crisis this state has ever had, you are going to tell me legalizing more drugs is the answer? Absolutely not.”

    Sununu is a Republican, but in New Hampshire there is bipartisan skepticism about marijuana legalization. Both U.S. senators from New Hampshire, Democrats Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, have expressed concerns or actively opposed legalization. 

    Ronald G. Shaiko, a senior fellow studying public policy and social sciences at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, said that residents in the state feel that the government hasn’t responded well to the opioid epidemic, and are wary of adding more drugs into the mix. Because of this, Sununu’s opposition is resonating. 

    “He’s hitting a chord,” Shaiko said. 

    Tym Rourke oversees treatment and addiction programming at the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. He said that even if marijuana is only dangerous for some people, that is not a risk that the state can take when hundreds of people are dying from opioid overdoses each year. 

    He said, “For some people, it’s unsafe. And as we are grappling with a high volume of individuals struggling with the consequences of substance misuse, do we really want to create a system that puts another substance more into the marketplace or more into their presence?”

    However, proponents including State Representative Renny Cushing, who is sponsoring the legalization bill, argue that increasing access to marijuana can actually reduce rates of opioid overdose. 

    “What we’ve come to understand is that marijuana in many instances is an exit drug, not a gateway drug,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Inside Elizabeth Warren's Plan To Address The Opioid Epidemic

    Inside Elizabeth Warren's Plan To Address The Opioid Epidemic

    Warren is one of the few 2020 presidential candidates to have discussed a plan to confront the opioid epidemic.

    As more names are being thrown into the hat for the 2020 presidential race, only one has spoken up about her plans to address the opioid epidemic.

    Elizabeth Warren has made some strides to combat the opioid crisis during her time as a U.S. Senator, according to Vox, and plans to continue to do so during her run for presidency.

    In her time in Congress, she has made a push for additional research into alternatives to opioids. She has also voiced her opinions about President Donald Trump’s response to the epidemic, calling it “pathetic.” 

    In 2018, Warren and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) introduced the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act to Congress. If put into play, the bill would spread $100 billion to various states and organizations to fight the crisis over a 10-year period.  

    “Our communities are on the front lines of the epidemic, and they’re working hard to fight back,” Warren tells Vox. “But they can’t do it alone. They can’t keep nibbling around the edges.”

    Warren is one of the few 2020 presidential candidates to have discussed a plan to confront the opioid epidemic. This could be because her state of Massachusetts has been hit particularly hard by the crisis with its drug overdose deaths at 31.8 per 100,000 in 2017, compared to the national average of 21.7.

    The CARE Act, according to some experts, is one of the only plans presented with potential to make a difference in the epidemic. Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University, tells Vox that Warren’s bill “is the only one that really grasps the nettle of how big the problem is.” 

    “Whatever else people might say about it, this is the first thing that really recognizes that [the opioid crisis] is a massive public health problem, like AIDS, and is not going to be solved by a tweak here, a tweak there,” he adds.

    The $100 billion involved in the CARE Act would be used in various ways, according to Vox. Some would be given to local government and nonprofits and some would be spread to numerous states, territories and tribal governments.

    This could be determined by overdose levels in certain areas, but some funding would also be given through a competitive grant process. Remaining funding would be dedicated to treatment, research, training and more access to overdose antidote naloxone. 

    Despite the support of some experts, Warren and Cumming’s bill has not made great progress in Congress. In the House, according to Vox, it received only 81 cosponsors, and in the Senate, it got none. Still, the two plan to reintroduce the bill in coming months. 

    Warren hasn’t hesitated to point out President Trump’s failure to deliver on his promises. In 2016, Trump said he would “spend the money” to confront the opioid epidemic. 

    “The Trump administration has treated this crisis like a photo op,” Warren tells Vox. “They talk a good game and produce nothing.”

    Although the CARE Act likely would not be able to address the entire epidemic on its own, it would be a start, Warren says.

    “Resources make a difference,” Warren tells Vox. “Not strong words. Not photo ops. But real money. Without real resources, the opioid crisis will continue to grow.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Opioid Epidemic Will Get Worse, Researchers Say

    Opioid Epidemic Will Get Worse, Researchers Say

    Using computer modeling, researchers predicted that overdose deaths will kill 81 ,700 people in 2025 unless drastic changes are made.

    Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital have grim news about the opioid epidemic: It’s likely to continue worsening in the coming years, unless widespread, drastic policy changes are taken to address illicit drug use. 

    The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, showed that even with efforts to more tightly control access to prescription opioids, overdose deaths will continue to rise.

    Using computer modeling, researchers predicted that overdose deaths will kill 81 ,700 people in 2025, most of whom will die from illicit opioids. Further restricting access to prescription opioids will only reduce that number by 3%-5.3%, researchers found. 

    “This study demonstrates that initiatives focused on the prescription opioid supply are insufficient to bend the curve of opioid overdose deaths in the short and medium term,” Dr. Marc Larochelle of the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center said in a press release. “We need policy, public health and health care delivery efforts to amplify harm reduction efforts and access to evidence-based treatment.”

    Jagpreet Chhatwal, who co-authored the paper with Larochelle and others, said that more drastic measures are needed to target the use of illicit opioids. 

    “If we rely solely on controlling the supply of prescription opioids, we will fail miserably at stemming the opioid overdose crisis. Illicit opioids now cause the majority of overdose deaths, and such deaths are predicted to increase by 260%—from 19,000 to 68,000—between 2015 and 2025,” said Chhatwal. “A multi-pronged approach—including strategies to identify those with opioid use disorder, improved access to medications like methadone and buprenorphine, and expansion of harm reduction services such as the overdose-reversal drug naloxone—will be required to reduce the rate of opioid overdose deaths.” 

    Chhatwal said that while easy access to prescription opioids may have contributed to the crisis, today the epidemic is more about illicit opioids including fentanyl and its analogues. Because of this, efforts to reduce overdose deaths need to focus on addressing the population of people who are using illegal drugs. 

    “The opioid epidemic started with a sharp increase in opioid prescriptions for pain in the 1990s; but since 2010 the crisis has shifted, with a leveling off of deaths due to prescription opioid overdoses and an increase in overdose deaths due to heroin,” he said.

    “In the past five years, deaths have accelerated with the introduction of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl into the opioid supply, leading to a continuing increase in overdose deaths at time when the supply of prescription opioids is decreasing.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • In Massachusetts, Opioid Deaths Decline For Second Year

    In Massachusetts, Opioid Deaths Decline For Second Year

    Officials applaud the state’s progress but acknowledge that there’s still a long way to go in the fight against the opioid crisis.

    Officials in Massachusetts are celebrating after state figures showed that opioid overdose deaths declined for the second year in a row, which officials say is due to interventions throughout the state that limit access to opioid prescriptions, increase access to opioid-overdose reversal drugs, and help connect people with treatment for opioid use disorder. 

    The data, which includes confirmed and estimated deaths from opioid overdoses, showed that 1,974 Bay Staters died from opioids in 2018, down about 4% from 2017. Between 2016 and 2017 there was a 2% decline in overdose deaths. 

    Monica Bharel, Department of Public Health Commissioner, told WGBH she was pleased with the progress and hopes that opioid overdose deaths continue to decline. 

    “When you look from 2016 to now, we are making progress. We are making progress and fighting this devastating opioid epidemic. We’ve seen a 6% decrease, we know the efforts we have in place are beginning to work, and importantly, to me, from a public health point of view, we have to continue our sustained work to bring those deaths down further.”

    Since Massachusetts improved its Prescription Monitoring System in 2015, there has been a 35% decline in Schedule II prescriptions, which include opioids. Gov. Charlie Baker praised this in a statement, while acknowledging that there is a long way to go. 

    “While we are encouraged to see fewer opioid-related overdose deaths for a second consecutive year and a 35% decrease in reported opioid prescriptions since 2015, the opioid epidemic continues to present a very serious challenge that is made more difficult due to the presence of fentanyl,” the governor said. 

    Although the progress is positive, there were some dire statistics released. Fentanyl is now present in 89% of opioid deaths in the state, up from less than 30% in 2014.

    Among people aged 25-34 opioids account for a staggering 40% of all deaths. In that demographic, opioid overdoses are still increasing. In addition, overdose deaths are increasing among black men. 

    Bharel said that the state needs to focus on these groups. 

    “For us at the state level and also at the community level, that gives us the opportunity to say, ‘Let’s make sure we’re engaging and investing in every community,’” she said. “There are some of us who are at highest risk. We want to make sure our work focuses on them.”

    That includes education, she added, particularly about synthetic opioids. 

    “One of the most important public health interventions is awareness and education. When people are using illicit drugs, they have to be aware of fentanyl, that fentanyl is deadly, that fentanyl is present in almost all of the opioid deaths right now.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Insys Execs Used Rap Video To Push Higher Doses Of Fentanyl Spray

    Insys Execs Used Rap Video To Push Higher Doses Of Fentanyl Spray

    The sales video parodied A$AP Rocky’s hit single “F—in’ Problems.”

    Jurors for a racketeering, fraud and conspiracy trial in Boston involving former Insys Therapeutics CEO John Kapoor saw a sales video made by the pharmaceutical manufacturer that showed company employees rapping about increasing prescription dosages and dancing with an individual dressed as a bottle of its powerful fentanyl spray Subys.

    Kapoor and four other former Insys managers and executives are accused of conspiring to pay doctors in exchange for prescriptions for Subsys, a fentanyl-based medication intended for use by cancer patients with severe pain. Kapoor and the other defendants have denied the charges.

    In the video, a parody of A$AP Rocky’s 2012 single “F—in Problems” which prosecutors said was shown during a national sales meeting in 2015, salesmen and other individuals rap about “titration,” a process by which employees persuade medical professionals to increase the strength of a prescription until their patients reach a certain dosage.

    At one point in the video, the person dressed as a Subsys bottle – which is notated with 1,600 micrograms, its highest dosage – is reportedly revealed to be Insys’ then-vice president of sales, Alec Burlakoff.  

    In November 2018, Burlakoff pled guilty to a charge of racketeering conspiracy, and according to NBC News, is expected to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against Kapoor.

    Another former Insys executive, ex-CEO Michael Babich, testified during the current trial that Kapoor encouraged employees to push for high dosages of Subsys so they would continue taking the drug.

    Attorneys for Kapoor claimed that Burlakoff was the architect of the kickback scheme, which according to CBS News, handed out more than $2 million to 18,000 doctors in 2016 alone.

    Kapoor’s lawyers also alleged that Burlakoff and Babich sought to reduce their sentences by providing false testimony against Kapoor, and have claimed that prosecutors have tried to link Insys to the national opioid crisis, noting that Subsys represents a fraction of the prescription opioid market

    Prosecutors, however, claim that Kapoor personally recruited physicians through expensive dinners and high-payment speaking engagements in order to ensure their commitment to higher dosages of Subsys. Kapoor, who resigned from Insys’ board of directors in 2017 after being arrested, along with Burlakoff, for their role in the kickback scheme on the same day that President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

    Subsys, which is reportedly 100 times stronger than morphine, has been alleged to have played a role in hundreds of overdose deaths since the Food and Drug Administration approved it for use as cancer treatment for breakthrough pain in 2012. The drug, which helped to make Insys the best performing public offering in 2013, is now one of several opioid-related assets for which Insys Therapeutics, Inc., is currently seeking a buyer.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Who Should Be Held Responsible For The Opioid Epidemic?

    Who Should Be Held Responsible For The Opioid Epidemic?

    A new op-ed suggests that to receive “true justice” for the opioid epidemic, “we need to root out all the villains regardless of whether they have famous names.”

    When it comes to the opioid epidemic, no name brings frustration and anger like Purdue Pharma. It is commonly accepted that the maker of OxyContin contributed to the growth of the opioid epidemic by using aggressive and misleading sales tactics meant to get more powerful opioids into the hands of more Americans. 

    The Sackler family, members of which founded the company that would become Purdue Pharma, have also come under fire for their perceived role in the epidemic. Not only did the family profit vastly from the sale of OxyContin, but new court documents assert that they were directly involved with pushing for more sales.

    When it became clear that OxyContin was addictive they even considered making medications to assist in the treatment of addiction, which would have allowed them to double dip, profiting from both ends of the crisis. 

    The actions of Purdue Pharma were reprehensible, Robert Gebelhoff writes in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. However, he argues that in addition to punishing them, the country needs to seek punishment and retribution for others who contributed to the crisis.

    “The opioid epidemic is one of the worst systematic failures of health care in our country. For true justice, we need to root out all the villains, regardless of whether they have famous names,” he writes. 

    Gebelhoff calls for holding the medical community and other accountable. 

    He writes, “Even if states are able to turn these latest charges into some form of punishment for the Sacklers themselves, what about all those who promoted their cause? What about the researchers who accepted funding from drug manufacturers and carried out campaigns to destigmatize opioid painkillers? What about the officials at the Food and Drug Administration who not only approved OxyContin without any clinical studies on how addictive the drug might be, but also approved a package insert declaring the drug safer than its rival painkillers?”

    He also points to government officials who failed to intervene in the crisis, and even made it more difficult for the Drug Enforcement Administration to pursue concerning opioid sales.

    At the same time, government policy made it difficult for people to access medication-assisted treatment, which is widely accepted as the best treatment for opioid use disorder. This pattern continues today, according to recent VA research that shows too few people are getting access to medication-assisted treatment. 

    “Who holds such practitioners accountable?” Gebelhoff asks. 

    Gebelhoff points out that the Sacklers and Purdue are a good target, because they have enough money to help fund access to treatment and other interventions into the epidemic. However, he says it’s important that other entities be held responsible even if they don’t have deep pockets. 

    “The opioid saga — stemming from prescription painkillers — has irreparably damaged the lives of countless Americans over the past few decades,” he writes. “Don’t they deserve better?”

    View the original article at thefix.com