Appalachian Addicts: Creating addicts, "treating" addicts, reviving addicts and securing the next generation of addicts
The price of naloxone / Narcan has grown 4,000 percent since it came out in the 1970s.
It was $1 a dose a decade ago. Now at $30-$40 a dose, with reports as high as $70, the price keeps climbing.
Cities are buying massive amounts. We know why cities are buying it, on the surface, but have you really thought about the Why enough?
Whether you see it as a waste of money for addicts isn't the point of this blog.
I suppose since we have no viable means to rehab addicts at this time, since worthwhile programs, research and so forth aren't likely coming, I can't say the use makes sense, either.
But that is another matter.
Do you realize in some states, more pain pill prescriptions are written than the population allows? Meaning. . .there weren't even enough people for the number of scripts that went out.
Pharmaceutical companies are sure winning in the epidemic of addiction in America. The same companies that do things like put the purchase price of an Epi-pen out of reach to families for allergic reaction treatment, are the same type of companies who made Oxycontin. They are the type who make roxycodone, Opana and make fentanyl. They are who manufacture Narcan. We trust them since most Americans live on multiple medications each day. They have our interests at heart. Sure.
Yet, these Pharmaceutical companies manufactured drugs they knew created addicts. They supplied states with more than they could possibly ethically use. Now they are poised to make as much money on the drugs that "treat" or "revive" the addict.
Much to the chagrin of these companies, many addicts have turned to heroin, as federal & state governments have limited access to prescription drugs after many years and tremendous damage, so the same story plays out with minor changes. Their drug addict profit levels now hinge more on "treatment drugs for addicts," like suboxone, methadone, buprenorphine, as well as the "revive" option with Narcan and generic options. I mean, because there is nothing like treating an addict with more addictive drugs to get him free of drugs, right, and when that all fails, like we know it does, bringing him back with more drugs? This clearly isn't profit driven, is it? This isn't creating and then capitalizing on addiction and death and treatment or anything. Sure.
Back when OxyContin was wrecking havoc initially, the company rolled around in profits, and they made no apologies. In 1996, when OxyContin came out, it produced 45 million in sales. By 2000, it was up to 1.1 billion. By 2010, it was at 3.1 billion. No red flags there. Nothing to see. According to one article, this drug made up 30% of all the sales of painkillers by that time. In the end, this single company owned by one family made 35 billion dollars from this pill that was snorted or cooked and shot up in corners across the United States. Too often, it seems to me, it happened in Appalachia if you look at per capita numbers.
I mean we were in the place it could take off more easily, I guess. Few jobs, No Hope, plenty of Pain Pills.
I mean we were in the place it could take off more easily, I guess. Few jobs, No Hope, plenty of Pain Pills.
Purdue settled in December of 2015 with the state of Kentucky on a suit concerning their misleading marketing of OxyContin. Previously, they settled a suit for over 600 million dollars in monies paid to the Government and victims in 2007, admitting they intended to defraud people when they claimed OxyContin wasn't especially addictive. They admitted to creating their own fake scientific charts given the doctors, and more. Of course, we'd have seen far more lawsuits, as well as watched that company go bankrupt, if more politicians were not in Big Pharma's pockets.
According to one article, "A 2003 GAO report found that Purdue Pharma gave doctors 34,000 coupons for free OxyContin prescriptions, as well as OxyContin “fishing hats, stuffed plush toys, coffee mugs with heat activated messages, music compact discs [...].” and obviously, these campaigns worked [...] — usage of OxyContin and other painkillers went way up. In 1991, Americans were issued 76 million prescriptions for opioids. By 2013, that number had nearly tripled" The same article, No Accident: Deadly Greed of Pharmaceutical Companies Drives the Heroin Epidemic, goes on to state:
Sure. It was a success. A deadly one, but who cares? These are only junkies' lives. Except some used to be something else if they were lucky enough to escape being born addicted. The odds they will not be in the future are more bleak these days. Bleak to the turn of 25% of babies born in West Virginia statewide being addicted at birth, some counties claiming much higher numbers. And we all know the numbers are higher than reports ever show. If I based the births I know of in my area, at least 50% are being born to addicts. 1/2 of the humans born. . . their bodies programmed from the womb to need a high to feel "normal."
Choices. Like when our Politicians accept huge contributions, both back and front door type, from Big Pharma companies. Because you know, that isn't a choice or anything, is it? They shouldn't be held accountable.
Choices. There have been a lot of them, but folks mainly talk about the addict's choice. It is too hard to look deeper. And everyone is angry at the addict. They never talk about the lack of choice concerning the teenager who is an addict because he was born addicted, grew addicted in utero. They never talk about the injured combat veteran who came back from a war told to take this "non addictive" medication that later would see hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits paid out because they lied. Where was his choice? They don't talk about the cancer patients given these drugs who beat cancer to simply be addicts now who do not matter to anyone. Do you know how many stories out there are like these? How do you know which is the story behind the Junkie you point at?
Far too few are angry about the "eyes open" choices made by Pharmaceutical companies who created, lied and pushed powerful drugs they knew people, for the most part, could never let go of once hooked. They banked on them never letting go. Almost no one talks enough about these companies,
like Purdue, laughing to the bank while parts of our nations are destroyed by what they did with their eyes open choices. Few talk about the choice to find a backdoor way to continue to profit with Narcan and drugs that will be created like it (for instance the $800 autoinjector kit option).
No, let us complain about the addicts. Look around at an easy target, so that we never fix the issue at all. We make sure those who should answer never do.
Keep doing the same thing that have failed year after year. That is truly the West Virginia lifestyle.
We sit around eating way too many food-like products, getting heavier, needing more medications just to control our conditions created by our lifestyles. We point fingers at the problems, never admitting we are all out of control in one way or another. We complain and eat more, drink a few more energy drinks, smoke a few more, use more fake sweeteners with "Known to Cause Cancer" stamped across the package, spend more and take more medications for self inflicted problems from the lives we create, and we never think about what is really going on here. We knowingly live lifestyles that create a dependency of Big Pharma and the Government at every single turn even in our non "drug addicted" lives. Yet, we do not see it.
But man, we see the junkie, don't we? He is unsightly. We aren't, though.
And we sure refuse to talk about the fact our government, with authority we gave, created this mess, and we keep letting this same government continue flopping around in the vomit and muck we all collectively had a hand in because, no matter what, we were quiet through it all.
Their choices, our choices: That is all uncomfortable. Let us look more at the addict and that choice.
It is so much easier, you know, to blame the dirty, disheveled addict on the corner of the gas station, as he is, well, he is dirty. And you know he isn't working. His teeth make him ugly, too. The billionaire executives are so clean and pretty and fancy. Surely they aren't to blame. Neither are those sweet talking political friends of ours. Honestly, we just all want to be those folks. Rich and Fabulous and Never Accountable. That is the American Dream.
So we continue on. We keep creating addicts by government funded "addiction clinics" where we buy more "drugs" from the companies that help create the addiction problem because they are "really trying to help" cure the addict. They want clean, sober, healthy and productive members of society. . .
But wait. . .that doesn't seem right.
Anyway, we will keep administering more drugs when they overdose on other drugs.
Drugs all bought from Big Pharmaceutical companies. Drugs to create the addict, to keep the addict addicted and to revive the addict, so he can go on making money until his body is truly used up, slumped in the corner and even Narcan cannot bring him back.
At which point the masses dance in the streets and sing, "Ding Dong, Ding Dong, the Wicked Addict is Dead!"
BUT WAIT! Not before he and friend created 2 or 3 babies who are also now born into addiction, assuring the survival of the cash cow more affectionately known as "A Junkie."
And the cycle of profit is secured, the seats elected are secure, and all of America is at rest.
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