Posts Tagged ‘addiction’
This is Why Sen. Edward Markey Is Short-Sighted on Opioid Crisis
Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward Markey wants the FDA to rescind its approval of OxyContin for children, and then convene an advisory panel to reconsider the issue. Senator Markey is well intentioned but misinformed. The FDA is not the problem. The agency has not “willfully blinded itself of the warning signs” of prescription painkillers, as Senator…
Read MoreIs This the Reason Some Restaurants in China are Serving Opium?
The China Food and Drug Administration is investigating 35 restaurants in China for potentially using powdered (and possibly addictive) opium poppies to season their food. They detected morphine and codeine as well as other poppy derivatives in the food. The Chinese restaurants involved might view using powdered poppies as an innocuous way to keep patrons…
Read MoreThis is the Reason Chris Bell’s Sobriety is Important
Thank you to the LA Times for recently running a story about Chris Bell. Chris Bell was producing a documentary about prescription drug abuse. Bell wasn’t only making a documentary about the problem. He was also living it. Bell was using alcohol in combination with Xanax which led to a decline similar to the one…
Read MoreCan Environment Be Responsible for Opioid Addiction?
For more than fifteen years, I have lectured that addiction is determined by one’s genetic vulnerability and environment. Exposure to a drug is necessary, but not sufficient by itself, to cause the disease of addiction–any addiction. Genetics is more of a factor for opioid addiction than it is for most other forms of addiction, but…
Read MoreWhat’s Massachusetts Thinking?
What’s Massachusetts thinking? The newest twist in the painkiller abuse debate is that Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has proposed legislation that has me in dejected disbelief. The bill would restrict both doctors and dentists from prescribing more than 72 hours of medication to patients upon initial injury or surgery. I understand the thought but it…
Read MorePendulums and Painkillers
Carl Jung once remarked, “The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” When I think about the nation’s patchwork quilt policy toward opioids, I’m reminded of how right he was. In my book “The Painful Truth,” I devoted some space to outline a brief history of opioids, and…
Read MoreWhen Abuse Turns to Addiction: The Hal Garner Story
Chronic pain generally reveals itself in two ways, either creeping up on a patient or making itself known immediately after an injury. Former Buffalo Bills star, Hal Garner, started his relationship with pain after a brutal hit during practice. He knew his football career was over as soon as he heard the popping of his…
Read More