Drinking issue at Dartmouth!

poetgrl
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:09:57 +0000

The heroin addiction we are currently seeing is iatrogenic. More than half the injection drug users we are now seeing at needle exchanges were utilizing prescription-type opiates prior to using heroin. Many of them became addicted by doctors who really didn’t know how to prescribe opiates for pain safely. Others became addicted because doctors (and dentists) were prescribing 5x-20x as many opiates as were needed, or prescribing when no opiate painkillers were needed at all, and the pills found their way to kids or directly into the market.



Yes, so insidious.

When we spoke to an AMA group attempting to get them to understand, before the new time release controls were put in, that oxy should only be used in pain management for end of life care, many of them believed we had no idea what we were speaking of. Doctors, oddly, have a lack of understanding that having that many vicodin pills just siting around the medicine cabinet is dangerous.

There are pain relievers, similar to ibuprofin, but one molecule or two over, which are more effective for pain control, particularly in women, but are prescribed infrequently. The medicine cabinet is almost as dangerous as the liquor cabinet in most houses. As a parent, throw out all unused and unneeded pain medication asap.