Together we can beat the opioid epidemic
By Brian Besser, Sean Reyes, and Mike Lee
Our nation is struggling through one of the worst public health crises in its history. Approximately 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016, the most recent year of national data. Opioids accounted for nearly two-thirds of those deaths.
This plague has not spared Utah. In fact, ours is one of the states hardest hit by the opioid crisis. On average, nearly six Utahns die weekly from opioid overdoses. Opioid deaths now outnumber deaths from motor vehicles and firearms. And three Utah rural counties were identified recently by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as being among the most vulnerable nationwide.
This epidemic has affected every community in our great state; urban and rural, rich and poor, churchgoing and not. Nearly every family, no matter where they come from, has a story about how this tragedy has affected their lives.
But in all of this alarming news, there is hope. There is a power in the togetherness of our common suffering. Through our shared pain and experience, we can work unitedly to identify solutions. In fact, we have already started.
Last May, building on important work done over years by many in our state, and complementing critical efforts of groups like the Utah Coalition for Opioid Overdose Prevention and Utah Department of Health, two of us — agent Brian Besser and Attorney General Sean Reyes — united leaders from many backgrounds and formed the Utah Opioid Task Force to expedite and enhance efforts to save Utah lives.
The Opioid Task Force assembled experts from diverse fields, including medicine, law, treatment, recovery, law enforcement and business. It includes physicians, pharmacists, legislators, local officials, educators, persons who have recovered from addiction and families affected by it.
Our executive committee is comprised of leaders like Utah Naloxone advocate Dr. Jennifer Plumb of the University of Utah and Speaker of the House Greg Hughes. Other voices strengthening the task force include Jenny McKenzie (filmmaker), Steve Eliason (legislator/executive), Patrick Rezac (One Voice Recovery), Mary Jo McMillen (USARA recovery advocate), UFC star Court McGee and former BYU football player turned broadcaster Alema Harrington (both who overcame opioid addictions), Carol Spackman Moss (legislator/educator), Jeanetta Williams (NAACP), and many more.
Immediately, the task force produced results that have benefited all Utahns. Agent Besser, a tireless advocate for our state, spearheaded an initiative landing Utah as the first jurisdiction to receive statewide funding from the groundbreaking DEA 360 grant program. Similarly, Attorney General Reyes has worked closely with the White House and federal agencies to find solutions, fix federal regulations, protect Utah and bring resources back home.
Besser, Reyes, and other Opioid Task Force members travel the state educating citizens on the perils of opioid dependency, the need to remove shame and judgment from opioid conversations, and the importance of treating addiction as a disease the way we would cancer or diabetes.
The task force has promoted Naloxone use by first responders, Jenny McKenzie’s acclaimed Sundance film “Dying in Vein,” and the DEA film “Chasing the Dragon.” Members of the task force work with physicians to change prescribing practices, have supported several successful DEA and attorney general investigations and prosecutions of drug cartel players, and support various treatment and recovery services. And recently, we hosted a Utah Opioid Roundtable with USDA and White House senior officials sponsored by Opioid Task Force, Rural Affairs co-chairs, state USDA Director Randy Parker and Beaver County Commissioner Mark Whitney.
Through all our work, we have learned that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem. While there are definitely criminals in this story — such as the drug dealers who greedily sacrifice lives for profit — there are many more innocent people who were drawn into opioid addiction after a work or sports accident or a simple medical procedure.
These people need our love and support. But there is more we can do to make sure innocent people aren’t swept up in this epidemic. Many doctors have been overprescribing opioids for years because they have underestimated how addictive they are. Likewise, patients have come to believe that opioid prescriptions are the best way to deal with their pain, even when other pain-management methods may be better suited to their needs.
Thankfully, opioid prescriptions are declining as we spread awareness about their destructive potential. In fact, due in large part to pressure by members of the task force, many pharmacies have recently begun to self-impose limitations on filling even a valid physician’s scrip. We also have partnered with federal, state, and local governments to help promote Utah Take Back Day, a biannual effort to collect unused prescription medications lying around in people’s homes. Just this past April, more than three dozen Utah law enforcement agencies removed more than 17,000 pounds of unused prescription drugs from Utah homes.
These are significant achievements, but there is so much more we can do. That is why we are pleased to welcome Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to the Utah Opioid Task Force as a co-chair. Sen. Lee has shed light on our opioid problem through his Social Capital Project, which produced an in-depth study on the numbers behind the opioid crisis.
According to the Social Capital Project report, in the 1960s, 80 percent of heroin addicts began addictions with heroin, itself, while today 75 percent of heroin addicts began abusing drugs with opioids obtained through a doctor or through someone else’s prescription. The report also found that 40 percent of opioids taken by opioid abusers were obtained freely from friends and family with legal prescriptions.
These sobering findings underscore the importance of reducing opioid prescriptions on the front end and disposing of unused prescriptions on the back end while getting desperately needed treatment and recovery to those already caught in the cycle of addiction.
Just as importantly, Sen. Lee’s Social Capital Project has discovered that individuals who are disconnected from their families and who either never married or are divorced are much more susceptible to opioid addiction. We need to find ways to reach these individuals and reintegrate them into our communities.
This is a fight we can win. We know this because Utah already is seeing results. Our state was one of just 14 where opioid deaths actually fell last year.
Still, we need to keep up the work and identify new ways to combat this epidemic. So please join our effort. You can help us solve this problem by sharing your experiences and ideas. The task force is here to listen and act.
Only through our combined efforts will Utah beat the opioid epidemic.
This is an epidemic of massive proportions. It is great to see Utahans making a courageous effort across a diverse spectrum of cross functional individuals. But this problem is nationwide. Seen the streets of SF lately? Or their BART stations? I will not get into the cause of this epidemic except to point out pharmaceutical marketing campaigns that changed the perception amongst Doctors towards pain medicine. To treat this epidemic especially long term addicts requires thinking out of the box. For short-term addiction, perhaps current methods work. However the recidivism rate after long expensive treatments, and the cost of said treatments if you do not qualify for government subsidies will break the bank of the average family. What works, and if monitored , that can cure somebody hooked for 17+ years in a few days, (yes dangers involved if done without medical supervision however currently legal in Canada) is a natural remedy called Ibogain or Iboga. Until we decide to pull out all stops, the epidemic will continue. I recently contacted the white house regarding this. No doubt it has setbacks, but medically supervised problems can be mitigated, , addict will die vs. Risk of treatment is the question. It also has a substantially lower recidivism rate. From what I have seen it is not a pleasant experience, but damn it works wonders. ?
It’s fantastic you’re doing something to fight the addicted person’s epidemic. But it seems you’re fighting persons in chronic pain too: limiting legitimate physicians scripts!?
I wish you could live in my body for a week. I’ve fought this excruciating pain for nine years, since my first auto accident (the other driver’s fault…she had Alzheimer’s), then cancer, lymphedema, and osteomyelitis, and then another auto accident (again…the other drover’s fault).
I’ve had steroid injections, radio-frequency ablation, physical therapy, massage, chiropractic, mind-body training, meditation, many, many prescriptions…most of which did nothing for the pain, and put me to sleep, more physical therapy, traction, an implanted spinal neurostimulator, many hospitalizations, ongoing infections (twice monthly at times)from the lymphedema, five bouts of shingles (I cannot receive the shot because of lymphedema), and countless other fights. In the 8th year of my war on pain, my longtime pain specialist prescribed a low dose of an opioid medication. It’s the one an ONLY thing that’s made my 24/7 pain bearable. I can now do the dishes, or a load of laundry, or walk my dogs…but I still have to choose which one I’ll do that day. I can’t do all of them, or I’d be bed-bound for a day or two, resting from the over-exertion.
Why would you want to take that away from me or the millions of legitimate, responsible patients in chronic pain or demonize us with heroin and fentanyl addicts?
If you did your research, or had Pain specialists in your study group, you’d know the statistics. As opioid prescriptions have been going down, overdoses have risen…since 2010. The math just doesn’t work. The majority of overdoses are from a combination of street drugs…not prescription meds. Usually those illicit drugs are mixed with alcohol.
Do the real research.
Stop treating me and the others as drug addicts. We are dependent on these medications for a quality of life…not to get high.
Please. I’m begging you to consider us.
Numbers are very easy to misinterpret. At least you acknowledge that not all the 65k od’s are from opiods. Separate od’s in which multiple drugs are involved, then again reseparate heroin and illegal fentanyl (like was historically done) and you are down to about 17k. I dont know the exact number are chronic pain patients , but of cpp’s only 4% become addicted, let alone die of od.
The number of presciptions has gone down. And this is more significant than is being reported. Again, numbers misled. A sixfold increase of scripts was created by making every long term user need a brand new scipt rather than a refill. So, same amount of pills were being counted not as one rx with 5 refills , but as six rx’s.
What is never being included in this war on rx drugs (and the disabled that rely on them), are statistics on the death rate of CPP’S who are losing their medicine through no fault of their own. Whose doctors have been scared by the DEA so much that they dismiss the patient or close their practice altogether.
And yet although you claim there is some progress here there is not. Because the number of drug overdoses does not go down when the number of scripts goes down. Thats because most OD is from illegal, poly, or non opiod drugs. Its like writting a script of insulin to cure a bacterial infection.
So we are actually doing more harm than good here
1) Your statistics are misguided. The CDC even admitted to not distinguishing between deaths related to valid opioid prescriptions and those related to illegal opioids and misuse or other substances while taking opioids. 2) This rampant idea that “all opioids are bad” are contributing to the massive undertreatment of chronic disease patients, many of whom have committed suicide or have nowhere to turn but the streets to treat their pain. These people only want to live and work without pain getting in the way, and for many, opioids are the only option they have. I hope the authors of this article do some real research before continuing to perpetuate an idea that is harm thousands of people daily.
I do apologize for the typos; I can barely see my screen and didn’t see them as I was typing. Going in for cataract surgery day after tomorrow. 🙂
“epidemic” First of all tthere is no epidemic of deaths caused by PRESCIPTION drugs. I couldn’t help but notice that the author did not include any information from those in the trenches of this “crisis”. Just as the CDC issued guidelines that were made of people withnin the addction communmity who have a direct interest in making chronic pain patients suffer and deny them access to legal precriptions (PROP) this writer commited the same egrregious error, He failed to actually investigate ALL sides, no pain management physicians, no chronic pain patients, no pain patient advocates, heck not even a simple “google” of the effect of the “crisis”just a one size fits none approach, any type of search would have shown the other side. for example the CDC admitted that the number of overdose deaths were inflated, see March 23 2018 in Medline 24/7. Lets look at a brief lists of articles available to the writer had he bothered to adequately educate himself on the topic prior to spewng forth the PROPaganda by a group of biased personnel,
1.1.http://medlineplus247.com/cdc-admits-rx-opioid-deaths-significantly-inflated
2. a white paper-https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/05/14/one-opioid-crisis-or-many-12956
3. https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/types-opioids-behind-growing-overdose-fatalities/
4,https://atipusa.org/2018/04/02/atip-white-paper-on-prescription-opioids-and-chronic-pain/
5. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/21/the-myth-of-the-roots-of-the-opioid-crisis-217034
6. https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/15/fda-head-acknowledges-suffering-caused-by opioid crackdown
Those are just six that were found withing minutes of looking, there are always more than one side to a story and shame on this writer for refusing to research and find the truth, there is a reason the term “fake news” permeates our lexicon thesde days and it is lazy jounalist that only look to show the side they deem appropriate, not a non biased look at a subject,
The Declaration of Independence says we are entitled to “LIFE, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, beingt told by my Federal Government that I must learn to live in agonizing pain because someone with a disease and addiciton is a disease, abused the medication so you can’t have it, so do we then deny insulin dependent diabetics because someoene also stole the syringes to use to inject themselves with an illegal drug, do we deny sicle cell patients pain medicine when in falare because someomne abused the drug and they might become addicted- again antoehr falsehood promoted, by those who have a role in denying pain medicine to patients and placing in a drug rehabilitation unit, those that have a direct conflict of interest lets look at the make up of the group responsible for most of this misinformation adnd remember when the FDA refused to issue the guidelines based on bad science this group when behind closed doors to get the CDC to issue them, besides it being out of their scope of practice, it is unethical, no public meetings, no notice, no pain management doctors no one but their bad data intentionally skewed and the then CDC director under the Obama administration, then decide for yourself based on looking at BOTH sides of the issue where the real crisis lies, https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2015/12/23/prop-and-the-opioid-lobby
Mission, to reduce opioid deaths, but as opioid prescriptions have declined, deaths have greatly increased. Rethink your strategy and quit hurting the chronic and intractable pain patients. Doesn’t take rocket science to figure it out that you are not using real statistics and your strategy is failing the entire public.
This is simply propaganda. Your use of facts is deceptive at best. I have no idea where you got the statistic that 75% of heroin addicts started with prescription opioids. It’s just not factual, not even close. The majority of addicts don’t start with a valid prescription. According to this, the majority of addicts start with heroin. https://t.co/6BJucfvCPi
Your claim that physicians didn’t realize how addictive opioids is ludicrous. Physicians have always known that only a small percentage of patients will addict. If that weren’t true, then why aren’t there more addicts? Most adults are exposed to opioids at some point in their life, but only about 5% addict. And by the way, the pill doesn’t cause the addiction any more than alcohol causes alcoholism. A person either has the genetic receptor variation or they don’t. Most start abusing substances at a young age. Patients taking opioid analgesics long term, without history of abuse or addiction, have a 0.19% chance of becoming addicted. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18489635/ But you want to restrict access to these medications just in case? There is another crisis occurring in this country that has been created by a false agenda and policies like yours. It’s a crisis of patient abandonment and untreated pain. Millions of patients have had their pain medications forcibly reduced or eliminated. Many are suffering complications of under treated and untreated pain, like heart attacks, strokes, adrenal failure and sadly, many are choosing suicide. I personally know one them. These people have tried all the alternative medications and therapies. Opioids are never the first line medication, just another fallacy among many you’ve stated. These people are citizens who’ve taken their medications safely and responsibly, often for many years, and now they are being punished for a much smaller group of people who suffer with substance abuse. Physicians are afraid to prescribe! DEA agents have targeted legitimate doctors, many times never charging them with an offense. This has casts chilling effect. Doctors are choosing their license and livelihood over treating their patients pain appropriately. Prescription opioids have plummeted. They are at a 25 year low. All while illicit fentanyl and heroin deaths continue to skyrocket. How do you call this a success? Why didn’t you mention these important facts? These policies of restricting access to prescription opioids have resulted in a 600% increase in illicit fentanyl deaths! But you, and other government officials, want to continue down the same path. What is wrong with our government??? The World Health Organization states treating pain, with opioid medications, when necessary, is a basic human right. Instead, you want to destroy that very principle. Not only are intractable and chronic pain patients suffering without treatment, now acute pain and cancer patients are being denied medications. Does this make you happy or proud? Does creating a new crisis, while making the original crisis worse, seem rational to you?
This witch hunt is hurting millions of chronically ill patients- many of whom will never get better.
For instance I have an 8 level fusion and laminectomy with pedicle screws and rod. Also a lower back 2 level. 8 levels is heavy and causes such intense pain I become incontinent. It will always be so.
These new laws saying 7 days- take aspirin, only take x amount, just ludacris laws should be banned themselves. No one should suffer unnecessarily. Doctors do their best at what they have been trained to do. Leave them to their business.
Some studies say “…this is how it is…” but when you research the indicated study you find “40% of 30 people…” How is that enough to support your theories?
Get some real facts that support (fairly) the millions of chronically ill patients who have a right to a semi-out of pain life. These patients don’t get a high- they usually don’t even get complete relief. They will settle for.. less pain.
Human rights for patients in pain, please. humane rights.
Patients are suffering terribly from the incorrect statistical pictures of this “epidemic”.
Chronic pain patients need our help and we need to put more research and money into the system to do so. Doctors have fled due to the stigma and interference from the DEA, and patients are left in serious pain.
The vast majority of these overdoses are from illicit drugs, primarily heroin and synthetic fentynal. Responsible pain patients use their medication appropriately.
It is not okay to punish people who are suffering with chronic pain. They are not the problem here.
I could not even finish reading this article because of my disgust. Everyone involved in Trying to solve this Manufactured “opioid epidemic” is either crooked and doing the wrong things to benefit financially, or just ignorant and arrogant! The Truth is that Less than 2% of Legally prescribed opioid meds are abused in any way. Less than 3% (that’s the highest of all Facts found) of those patients ever get addicted. The amount of available opioid meds in general have Already been Rapidly Decreasing since 2011. From 2012-2014 alone the availability of opioid meds were reduced by 41%! The way all the people in our government (and others that have had an effect) have been addressing this is Completely WRONG with about a 7% that has actually been useful. Look at all people that are involved in doing something to fix our Addiction Crisis. Almost if not All are benefiting from the way they are handling it! Our FDA, CDC, & DEA have Been working for the special interests for at least 3 years that I can prove, Not for us citizens! Big Pharma is making Millions of dollars in Profit from this alone, and they continue to raise the price of the meds drastically. Then we have our psychologists, drs., all types of treatment places, politicians, etc… Most know that both the DEA and CDC have Already Admitted that their information on all this was Largely Skewed or outright Lies! We NEED help with our Addiction Crisis! Very few people ever got addicted or od from Legally obtained opioid meds. This is a fact, not a lie like our government and health system tells us. Anyone can find all this Real information online if you look and understand what you can believe. As for all the crooks running things… They all Need to Stop torturing Millions of people are Start actually doing their Jobs Right!
Perhaps doctors can be a little more mindful about their prescribing habits after the company that makes OxyContin was a little lax on their addiction warnings, but we need to allow doctors to treat their chronic pain patients without feeling threatened by government agencies and without strict legal restrictions on acute pain prescribing. Those things are causing big problems for chronic pain patients and doctors. Did these law makers have to spend many years in medical school and pass medical licensing exams? The statistics put out by the media are also misleading. We have had prescription medicines stolen from our home as well, so another case where it wasn’t directly from a doctor and I’m sure this isn’t uncommon. I don’t believe people would readily just hand in extra pills knowing how difficult it could be to acquire them again if they really need it.
The numbers game used by the CDC are wrong. They even admitted it but have done nothing to follow up on their mistakes. America has an illegal drug epidemic , not a prescription drug epidemic. And until the real issue is identified no programs are going to help the epidemic. In the meantime almost all chronic pain patients (cpp) are suffering, many committing suicide. Doctors who treat cpp are being arrested or driven out of treating cpp. About 4% of patients receiving prescription pain medications become addicted while 100% of cpp are suffering due to new laws restricting legal pain medications. The group makeup in this article did not include any chronic pain patients. Ask why!
Want to stop the opioid ABUSE epidemic, ONE, get our government to stop actively disenfranchising United States citizens, two – I challenge the reporter to find affordable after hours mental health professionals for these people to access BEFORE they get to a crisis stage. three – what about those citizens with intractable pain??? Where are the pain clinics in this article. Contrary to popular belief responsible chronic pain patients don’t automatically become addicts. Where is the whistle blowing on the CDC inflating their death numbers and lastly Not everyone can take medical marijuana or has access to it. You all NEED to do more homework
I’ve been a chronic pain patient for over 10 years. Before having the doctor prescribe the correct drugs I lived in bed or on the couch. I’ve had so much more life in the past years, now they want me to die a slow painful death! This is disgusting, so many chronic pain patients are going to be left in horrid pain. PLEASE MAKE ME UNDERSTAND!
I have a arachnoiditis, a disease in which scar tissue compresses the spinal cord, and the sciatic nerves. It is progressive, and the only treatment is palliative. I’ve lived with intractable pain for at least 15 years, and arachnoiditis was diagnosed 11 years ago by an MRI scan. I was then referred to a pain clinic by my internist. After several months of trying various combinations of medications to control the pain, I finally found one that really works. I have been taking these medications for 10 years now, at the same dose; I have never abused them nor shared them. I’ve never sold them on the street nor have I gone to an emergency room to try and get more. I dread the prospect of living without them. My life is confined to lying down on the sofa or in bed. I am sure I am not the only patient facing this nightmare. One doctor has dump me, saying, “ go, get your pain medication from someone else.” My doctor at the pain clinic is retiring, and I am terrified. I’ve been to several pain physicians in the past few months, and while they offered to perform invasive procedures that are dangerous and contraindication for this disease, not one doctor would help to allieve my pain with the one thing that works: opioid medications. Not only do I have intractable pain, but when the pain isn’t alleviated, my spine goes into nonstop contractions. Opioid medications were developed for a reason, to control pain, and it does that very well. Patients with intractable pain do not abuse their medications. The opioid hysteria is not focused on the root of the abuser epidemic, heroin mixed with fentanyl coming from China and sharing dirty needles. Don’t abandon us.
Remember, every person is only one accident or illness away from being someone in chronic pain who is refused medication for pain. I have been taking care of 78 year old whose spine is twisted like pretzel for one year now. She has been to neurosurgeon, pain center, surgeon (yes Ibuprofen ate hole in )requiring emergency surgery. She was sent home from surgery 5 days later with 18 staples and no medicine. The pain Dr said worse case of rheumatoid arthritis he had ever seen. Treatment, “I will pray for you” You have drs scared treat in fear of losing their license. Are you really worried that a 78 year old women is going to get addicted to drugs?
Vile, hate-filled propaganda. Nothing but the corrupt mouthpiece for the true criminals that profiteer off the “opiate crisis.” Why don’t you run pieces condemning the true epidemics of this degenerate society: rampant port, tobacco (dwarfing the number of fatalities from the “opiate crisis), booze (gods gift to man and woman eh!), the poison sold as “food” in stores (yes, diabetes, vascular disease, etc are TRUE, not fake, epidemics). Your disgusting disinformation agents pushing an agenda (war on the people) and you MUST be exposed.
THE LEVEL OF IGNORANCE ON DISPLAY in this article IS STAGGERING, I DON’T CONSIDER SOMEONE WHO JUST REPEATS INFO TO BE A JOURNALIST IT IS OBVIOUS ALL THEY R DOING IS PARROTING LIES AND JUNK SCIENCE FROM THE CDC DEA AND FDA, for had they done any vetting or research they would have realized that this story is much more complicated than a first glance would show. It seems we no longer have writers interested in the truth of what they are reporting, i guess researching an item is just too much work these days, for if they looked at the stats being provided they would realize something is very wrong with the picture being painted, for example if scripts are down 60% why are deaths up 50%, for example less that 1% of pain patients who use script pain meds ever have a problem of any kind related to that medication, why is it that the fact that 45,000 Americans took there lives last year and no one is upset by that fact, stories of suicide are everywhere in the pain patient arena, the agenda of hate and terror being waged on the citizens of this country is vile, doctors sent to prison for doing there job by a DEA that is more of a terror organization than anything else vets being treated ,like garbage forced off there meds left to suffer and commit suicide, all in a country that claims to love veterans, yeah that’s love alright,the worst part of this is that the vile people responsible for this horror know what is happening and have done nothing to correct the problem as far as I am concerned they should be charged with the murder of every person who died under their watch, and sent to prison for life, this is a horrendous abuse of power and a huge violation of human rights, what they doing to innocent Americans should never happen to anyone especially when u consider that it has been done by the federal gov’t of the US, the vile US gov’t, the people who wrote this article also have blood on their hands, for they are part of the problem, also i unclicked the sub button, reading gross lies affects my attitude and not in a good way, shame on every person putting forth the lies that are killing American citizens
Yet another person leaps on the opiod hysteria bandwagon. The actual facts –as opposed to the ‘alternative facts”– argue against pretty much everything in this piece. But destroying the lives of legit chronic pain patients is much easier than addressing the real problem –illegal drugs. We’ve been losing The War on Drugs for over 40 years, so politicians have finally hit on an idea that can make them look good; go after prescription pain medicines, even though it has nothing to do with the real problem. Prescriptions for pain meds are way down for the last few years, but ODs are up. Chronic pain patients go through incredible testing and controlling hoops to obtain their LEGAL medicines, that they don’t get high on and don’t abuse; they need them to achieve some functionality and quality of life. Increasingly, these pain patients are being denied treatment because of misguided and misinformed hysteria. I seriously wonder if there will be a piece decrying the increased numbers of pain patients who commit suicide because they cannot live with untreated, intractable pain –while those who abuse drugs to get high keep on doing what they’ve been doing all along.
Yet another panel made up of people who have NO experience treating chronic pain or being in chronic pain. Once again it is made up of people who stand to gain from passing too restrictive mandates (politicians, media), especially the rehab people who have NO experience treating chronic pain patients and only stand to gain by having more people in their rehabs. Don’t get me wrong, we DO need more rehabs and addicts need access to them which Trump has taken away. And what on EARTH can a filmmaker provide in the way of expertise in addiction and the supposed ‘opioid epidemic’???? This only shows that this is just another panel made up of hand picked people to serve an agenda, just like the CDC panel that passed the supposed ‘guidelines’ that was done in secret and illegally. I can’t believe the NAACP would participate in this as those of color are suffering from chronic pain as well. What is needed is to recognize that there is a difference between illegal and legal opioids and that the figures being released has changed so many times as to be laughable. First it was over 64k people dying each year, now it’s down to 47k. Why? Because there are some revealing the discrepancies in the way the figures were come up with in the first place. In post mortems, OD’s involving Opioids were being counted as ALL due to scripts even if they weren’t and since Heroin metabolizes like Morphine they weren’t doing the special tests to tell the difference! People on opioids have gone through everything before we would agree to take a drug that is expensive, has side effects, leads to stigmatization and probable withdrawal with the current hysteria. We’ve tried acupuncture, TENS, water aerobics, manipulations, chiropractor, surgery, multiple physical therapies, OTC drugs, to name a few. ONLY then would we take these drugs. Addicts will always be addicts and will always go for whatever drug they can get. Look as far back as the war between the states when soldiers became addicted to Heroin. Look at all the damage that has been done by tobacco and alcohol. Over 380k people die each year from tobacco, 42k from second hand smoke and over 88k die from alcohol. Why have they not been declared ‘epidemics’ and have their access restricted or taken away??? Is it because you are picking on a population who due to pain cannot stand up and fight for themselves? We cannot march, hold sit in’s, protest, all because we hurt too much. But if you took away people’s tobacco and alcohol you better believe there would be a ruckus. AND what about our valiant Veterans? They who have placed their lives on the line so we can live like we do and some of who come back horribly injured. They are now being denied the pain medications they desperately need. The current statistics are 27 Veterans are committing suicide A DAY because they are in so much pain they can’t deal with it anymore. That is unconscionable!!!! The current epidemic is being caused by the illegal Fentanyl, Heroin and Cocaine that is coming across our borders, not by Dr’s and not by chronic pain patients taking their meds responsibly. You should have done your due diligence before publishing such an inaccurate biased article. Shame on you!