Showing posts with label painkillers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painkillers. Show all posts

Limited Access To Hydrocodone Pushes Abusers To Heroin

Unintended consequences of DEA dictating health care.  After the DEA ruled to make hydrocodone a schedule two drug, some health officials became concerned abusers would find more dangerous ways to feed their addiction. Now that hydrocodone isn't easily accessible, those who abused it aren't able to meet their addiction needs,    ... MORE

Feds Decide Better To Live In Pain Than Risk Drug Abuse

The rescheduling of hydrocodone.  Imagine being wheeled into an operating room for an eye lift. As the anesthesia begins to flow into your vein, you see that instead of small precision scalpels on the instrument tray next to you,  your surgeon will be using a hatchet and an ax. Panic swells as you slide defenselessly out of consciousness…      ... MORE

Our Fear Of Opioids Leaves The World In Pain

by Helen Redmond.   Healthcare now dictated by DEA. Ever broken a bone? Recovered from a major surgery? Do you live with chronic pain? If so, you understand on a visceral level that access to opioids like morphine to manage pain is critical. Opioids are necessary to perform surgery, make recovery from traumatic injuries possible, and can grant      ... MORE

Should NFL Players Be Allowed To Treat Pain With Pot?

Moralists clash with medicine. While Colorado is the first state to fully legalize marijuana, Denver Broncos players are banned from using the drug. However, as CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen reports, a former NFL player said the hits he took on the field made him, and others like him, turn to pot. "Pain is constant when you play       ... MORE

Mark Strauss: How To Reduce Painkiller Overdoses

Just ask states with legalized medical marijuana.      As the number of patients who receive opioid prescriptions to treat non-cancer pain has increased in the past decade, so too have the number of overdoses. A new study, however, finds that states that legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010 had 25% fewer annual       ... MORE

Powerful New Painkiller Gives Drug Warriors A Headache

by Tom Wilemon.      Government's noble war to free you from pain relief. A powerful new pain medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that easily can be manipulated by abusers has officials in Tennessee and other states worried. Called Zohydro, it’s an extended-release form of hydrocodone that comes in a capsule   ... MORE

Medical Marijuana's Dramatic Effect On Pain Relief

by Jan Hefler.    What the Surgeon General does not want you to know. Before buying cannabis at South Jersey's only medical-marijuana dispensary, patients must circle one of six animated faces that stare out from a clipboard. The row of smiling, wincing, frowning, and sobbing cartoon faces is being used to rank the degree of pain that   ... MORE

John Stossel: Bullies Rule

We're told government protects us,       but protectors quickly become bullies. Take the Food and Drug Administration. It seems like the most helpful part of government: It supervises testing to make sure greedy drug companies don't sell us dangerous stuff. The FDA's first big success was stopping thalidomide, a drug that prevented the    ... MORE

Stanton Peele: Why We Have Drug Scares

Are there greater social problems we can't face?     How many drug scares can you identify? Jacob Sullum identified these from 2013: marijuana, Salvia divinorum, cocaine,"bath salts," absinthe, Four Loko.  Well, let’s go back a ways.  Of course there was crack.  There were horse tranquilizers.  There was OxyContin.  Before Oxy there were      ... MORE

No, You Can't Keep Your Drugs Either Under ObamaCare

by Scott Gottlieb.     The President famously promised that you could keep your health plan and doctor. For many people, both of those pledges are turning out to be false. And now, you might not be able to keep your medicine, either. There are two reasons why. The first has to do with the higher out of pocket costs patients will face. The second issue  ... MORE

The War On Pot Is Over! (If Obama Wants It)

by Nick Gillespie.     Years from now, 2013 isn’t going to remembered as the year when Obamacare went down faster than a Clinton-era White House intern, President Rand Paul made a name for himself by filibustering against drone strikes and secret kill lists, or Miley Cyrus twerked onstage as sexily as a Rhesus monkey with electrodes    ... MORE

FDA Seeks To Make Prescription Painkillers Harder To Get

Government steps up war on drugs.       A big change to legal drug policy is in the works. After years of pressure from public-health and addiction advocates, as well as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Food and Drug Administration has recommended that access to drugs containing the highly-addictive opiod narcotic hydrocodone       ... MORE

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

A doctor undertakes to study the issue.       Over the last year, I have been working on a new documentary called "Weed." The title "Weed" may sound cavalier, but the content is not. I traveled around the world to interview medical leaders, experts, growers and patients. I spoke candidly to them, asking tough questions. What I found was stunning.    ... MORE

Government Targets Vicodin In War Against Painkillers

More pain for patients helps fight drug war.   The DEA for nearly a decade has pushed for tighter restrictions on Vicodin, the nation's most widely prescribed drug. The chronic abuse of such painkillers, and devastating toll associated with this abuse, has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. The agency could get its wish  ... MORE

How A Cop Used A State Database To Steal Pain Pills

by Michael McFall.  A former Vernal police detective now faces criminal charges stemming from his alleged theft of a couple’s pain pills, a month after the couple filed a complaint against him in federal court. Ben Marland Murray, 38, was charged Friday in 8th District Court with unlawful use of the controlled substance database and possession of a controlled    ... MORE

SF Gate: Most Expired Drugs Work Fine

Most expired drugs remain potent for decades. Thinking about going through your medicine cabinet and throwing out all your expired prescriptions? That might not be necessary, according to a UCSF-led study. Researchers analyzed eight prescription drugs with 15 active ingredients that expired between 28 and 40 years ago and found  ... MORE

Mike Riggs: Obama Is Making It Difficult To Get Pain Meds

The administration declares war on pain relief.    In July 2011, the Office of National Drug Control Policy released its longterm plan for reducing prescription drug abuse. One of the bullet points in that report was this: "Write and disseminate a Model Pain Clinic Regulation Law within 12 months." Twelve months later, the ONDCP has yet to (publicly)   ... MORE

Lourdes Garcia-Navarro: Medical Pot Use Sprouting In Israel

Israel is a world leader in the use of medical marijuana.   More than 10,000 patients have received government licenses to consume the drug in order to treat ailments such as cancer and chronic pain. But while the unorthodox treatment has gained acceptance in Israel, it still has its critics. Susan Malkah breathes in the cloud of smoke from a plastic   ... MORE