4 ms·

How Congress and drug company lobbyists worked to neutralize the DEA

12 points by zspitzer 9y ago

oblib 9y ago
Sure learned a lot reading this. No surprises really, but lots of confirmation. Shared it with my FB friends.
glenra 9y ago
The article's timeline counting "deaths from prescription opioid overdoses since 2000" seems hugely misleading in that overdose deaths from prescription use affects a teeny-tiny fraction of opioid prescriptions and that fraction hasn't changed. What has changed is that (a) more people were able to get prescriptions, (b) time has passed. Given more prescriptions we should logically expect more deaths to result - and this doesn't mean anything is wrong with prescription policy. Given the passage of time, a raw count of "total deaths since 2000" should tend to increase - this also doesn't mean anything is wrong. Overdose deaths are a bad thing, but people suffering from under-treated pain because doctors are afraid to prescribe enough pain relief is also a bad thing. These two bad things are in tension with one another. A raw count of "deaths since 2000" fails to tell us which bad thing is worse.
- gwenzek 9y ago
  I agree that the numbers of the articles are poorly chosen. That said the number of OD per year is increasing sharply in the US [1] Thus article shed some lights on why the DEA seems to have more trubble than before keeping in check the painkiller fabricants. For me it shows that it's really hard to prevent collusion between regulators and industries when it's a common practic to get hired at the people you used to watch over. 1: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
  - glenra 9y ago
    The number of OD per year is almost meaningless without knowing the number of users per year. (Which also had been increasing sharply in the US.) The last time I looked into this it seemed like illegal heroin use was relatively dangerous and legal prescription opiate use was quite safe and remains so - the increase in the raw number of prescription related ODs was entirely caused by the same old tiny OD rate being applied to a larger number of prescriptions. You get big scary numbers by (a) combining deliberate suicides with accidental ODs, (b) combining ODs from illegal use with ODs from legal use, (c) ignoring background trends in usage rate. Properly separate those factors out and it stops seeming likely that too-many-prescriptions is a problem.
    - gwenzek 9y ago
      I'm not sure what's you're point. For me the bad thing is that drug addiction is increasing. OD is just a proxy for that, since it's something easier to count that the number of addicts. (b) seems legit to me. If you OD on legal use that means that the drug wasn't give out responsibly or in a safe environment. c) an increasing trend in drug consumption is not something I find reassuring even if it may have a legit explanation like an increase in the number of cancer (because that's also scary) (a) is a more sensible topic but an increase in voluntary OD isn't a sign of an healthy society.

12 points by zspitzer 9y ago

Sure learned a lot reading this. No surprises really, but lots of confirmation. Shared it with my FB friends.

The article's timeline counting "deaths from prescription opioid overdoses since 2000" seems hugely misleading in that overdose deaths from prescription use affects a teeny-tiny fraction of opioid prescriptions and that fraction hasn't changed. What has changed is that (a) more people were able to get prescriptions, (b) time has passed. Given more prescriptions we should logically expect more deaths to result - and this doesn't mean anything is wrong with prescription policy. Given the passage of time, a raw count of "total deaths since 2000" should tend to increase - this also doesn't mean anything is wrong. Overdose deaths are a bad thing, but people suffering from under-treated pain because doctors are afraid to prescribe enough pain relief is also a bad thing. These two bad things are in tension with one another. A raw count of "deaths since 2000" fails to tell us which bad thing is worse.

gwenzek 9y ago
I agree that the numbers of the articles are poorly chosen. That said the number of OD per year is increasing sharply in the US [1] Thus article shed some lights on why the DEA seems to have more trubble than before keeping in check the painkiller fabricants. For me it shows that it's really hard to prevent collusion between regulators and industries when it's a common practic to get hired at the people you used to watch over. 1: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
- glenra 9y ago
  The number of OD per year is almost meaningless without knowing the number of users per year. (Which also had been increasing sharply in the US.) The last time I looked into this it seemed like illegal heroin use was relatively dangerous and legal prescription opiate use was quite safe and remains so - the increase in the raw number of prescription related ODs was entirely caused by the same old tiny OD rate being applied to a larger number of prescriptions. You get big scary numbers by (a) combining deliberate suicides with accidental ODs, (b) combining ODs from illegal use with ODs from legal use, (c) ignoring background trends in usage rate. Properly separate those factors out and it stops seeming likely that too-many-prescriptions is a problem.
  - gwenzek 9y ago
    I'm not sure what's you're point. For me the bad thing is that drug addiction is increasing. OD is just a proxy for that, since it's something easier to count that the number of addicts. (b) seems legit to me. If you OD on legal use that means that the drug wasn't give out responsibly or in a safe environment. c) an increasing trend in drug consumption is not something I find reassuring even if it may have a legit explanation like an increase in the number of cancer (because that's also scary) (a) is a more sensible topic but an increase in voluntary OD isn't a sign of an healthy society.