If there was a terrorist camp in Afghanistan that sent a few sleeper cells to to Massachusetts and in the course of one year, 983 civilians would lose their lives at the hands of these militants in 2014, it would be in the headlines for months. We’d be printing bumper stickers to remember the 983. There would be a fund drive to help the families of the 983. No doubt Secretary Kerry, Governor Baker and a who’s who of that sort would be working to stop another 983 Massachusetts citizens from meeting the same fate in 2015.
983 citizens did lose their life in 2014 but it was not at the hand of Afghan militants; it was at the hands of Afghan farmers. While not all heroin comes from Afghanistan and while not all opiate deaths are from heroin, I do hope you see my point.
983 citizens were killed in 2014 but there are no slogans, no rallies, no fund drives because, perhaps, we dismiss them as junkies, weak people, morally inferiors who did it to themselves. And then comes the day when we read about a drug bust in our quaint and quite suburban town, we hear that a daughter of a friend of ours in a posh neighborhood is in rehab, and we learn that a co-worker has been fired because he was stealing on the job to support his wife’s drug habit.
This is not “those people” anymore. This is us.
983 of us died last year from this attack and unless we wake up, we’ll hit 1,000 this year.
I am relived to see Attorney General Maura Healey put this at the forefront of her office and I hope that our other elected officials will do the same.
…yes it is complicated. People with long-term chronic pain and end of life pain need access to opiate pain killers. But the drug companies, with the FDA turing a blind eye, have pushed opiated to doctors that perform knee and oral surgery and fix broken bones.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that by increasing supply of prescription opiates, you increase the amount of potential abuse. And for those who want to blame the teenager that steals pain killers from a medicine cabinet (about 70% of 1st time teenage opiate users get the drug from a medicine cabinet) for their own action…I ask anyone here if they ever made a bad decision as a teenager? But the difference is the consequences are far greater today. When many of us were younger, there were very few of us that paid a high price for underage drinking, smoking pot or taking LSD, etc. But when you play with opiates, it is the very few that do NOT pay a high price for abusing opiates.
Yes, we need to take extraordinary measures to help the thousands of state residents who are suffering from opiate addiction. Starting with making Naloxone/Narcan available to all first responders to save lives and then deploying a wide variety of treatment programs.
But ultimately we need to stop the flow of supply. People do not wake up and say, hey, I’m going to shoot heroin today. No, they unwittingly take and abuse drugs they assume are safe–because doctors prescribe them–and become addicted and switch to the low-cost, faster high and start shooting up.
The need to stop the flow of opiate addiction is not through Afghanistan, but through the US medical community.
…was on a television program by Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Parts Unknown’: Heroin in Small-Town USA.
I wondered why I would first learn about this on a program like his and not on a bigger stage (with all due respect to Anthony Bourdain!). That is why I wrote this post. 983 citizens of the commonwealth dead in one year and it does not make “Big News” and stay on the news? Are we really that preoccupied with Aaron Hernandez and the like?
and it was set here in MA, in P’Town and the Greenfield area.
It should actually be seen by policy makers. On the one hand, sad that an ironic chef and recovering drug addict is the only one out there doing this on a food show rather than say, 60 Minutes or Frontline. On the other hand, excellent show! That episode, the Iran episode, and last years on the failed drug war in Mexico were on point. This man should have every Emmy.
Bordain should get an Emmy. I keep going back to one day in high school where Mrs. Exner spent the entire English Class on The News, with newspapers as her example, but it applies to it all. She pointed out that people at the newspapers decide what goes in the news, and equally important, what does not make the news. I don’t want to come across as that Mel Gibson guy in Conspiracy Theory, but when I look at the millions spent by giant pharmaceutical companies on advertizing budgets (more than they spend on research) and when we know that it’s prescription drugs, not pot or booze that is the “gateway drug” to this epidemic and it hardly makes the news…..I gotta wonder.
John, thank you for posting this, we clearly have a full-blown public health crisis on our hands. There absolutely needs to be more treatment of addiction, and drug addicts, in Massachusetts.
Last sesson, Representative Tom Sannicandro (D-Ashland) and I formed the Harm Reduction and Drug Law Reform Caucus (website http://www.harmreductionma.org/). We now have over 60 House and Senate members of the caucus, and it continue to grow.
A critical point is that we need to change our outdated and broken criminal justice laws, in order to free up the funding for more treatment. That is why the caucus has focused a few key reforms, including:
1. Repeal mandatory minimum laws for nonviolent drug offenses
2. Pass bail reform, to move away from incarcerating people who are in jail merely because they have an addiction
3. Embrace restorative justice, to stop directing every crime through the court system, that wastes moneys and limits the lives of offenders, who live the rest of their lives with a criminal record.
Simply put, it’s not enough for politicians to prioritize tackling drug abuse, if they’re also not willing to call for serious reform of our drug laws, any many aspects of our criminal justice system. Just as bad, there will be no money to actually fund the increased treatment that many elected officials are calling.
Thanks again for highlighting these tragedies across Massachusetts.
And thanks for your efforts on ending this epidemic. While my family and I have been fortunate to not be directly affected, the examples I gave were all from my personal experience. I know that your efforts would be strengthened with more public support, more funding, and that will only come with more media attention, and so I write about it and hope to cause a stir.
Senator Eldridge, that’s fantastic about the Harm Reduction and Drug Law Reform Caucus. I wasn’t aware of it but am happy to hear there’s such a large group of legislators uniting around support for those principles. Many of the harms associated with drug abuse are exacerbated or even caused by prohibition, and only by ending the Drug War and treating drugs as a health issue instead of a criminal one can we significantly reduce abuse.
John, thanks a ton for posting this. The drug overdose crisis is such an overlooked issue and I’m happy to see AG Healey, Gov. Baker, and others are making it a top priority this year. My only worry is that they’ll focus on criminalization, trying to toughen up enforcement or increasing penalties for various drug crimes, rather than treatment and other social services.
I think we would do well to mimic the Portugal model, which has been really successful at reducing the harms associated with drug abuse. I wrote about it in HuffPo last year, and while that article is centered on Vermont, the same lessons apply to Massachusetts as well.
that the AG wants to involve her office with the practice of medicine? Quote from the article:
The article goes on to say that the AG’s office “…will evaluate drug marketing, prescribing and dispensing practices…” This is an important issue, no doubt, but there’s something wrong when we have law enforcement getting involved with the training and evaluation of doctors. I’m sure the AG means well by this, but this approach may well do more harm than good.
The FDA and other governmental regulatory agencies have an obligation to protect consumers of medical products and services. I am glad her office is getting vigorously involved in tackling this issue. All the local agencies are overwhelmed by the problem.
The FDA is charged with approving every prescription drug available in the US. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office does not have any equivalent function. So when the AG talks about scrutinizing the actions of doctors, I have to wonder if there is any competency to do such a thing. I also wonder if the AG’s suggestions would have a chilling effect on the practice of medicine in this state.
There are many legal issues involving pharmaceuticals and pharmacy billing so the AG’s office actually has substantial expertise in this area.
Some examples
2013-11-04-johnson-johnson-settlement
2013-09-06-allcare-settlement
2013-12-03-caremark-settlement
I expect Healy to bring suit. But it’s something different, to have a role in overseeing the treatment choices made doctors.
The AG’s office has long played an active role in that regard.
There is precedent in the AG’s consumer protection role. But that’s not exactly reassuring.
In gun policy, for example, the AG stops the sale of new glock handguns in Massachusetts. The AG is preventing consumers from buying one of the most common handguns in the world. Will common practices in the treatment of pain be excised as well? If so, I’d say that’s a totally unacceptable infringement on our right to medical privacy.
Now, it doesn’t sound like Healey is doing anything that dramatic. But it does sound like she intends to use her influence to guide medical practice. I’m not ok with the AG standing over my Doctor’s shoulder.
Medical choices are one of the most personal areas that government can intrude upon. I’m a bit surprised by the lack of outcry here on bluemass.
…the AG is exercising oversight on behalf of consumer safety, which is completely legit. FWIW, a key reason I supported Tolman in the primary was his willingness to use existing law to make guns safer by requiring trigger locks. If you’re going to invoke privacy on something like that the logical conclusion is the flat out libertarian argument for any product and just say it’s entirely up to the consumer to sort out what is safe and what isn’t. I absolutely would want the AG to stop an unsafe practice on the part of a doctor or any other professional.
It’s just more of the war on drugs. Healey says people are “prescribed prescription drugs and in no time turn to heroin.” She is not describing reality. She is describing a politically warped perception of reality.
I don’t have a problem with the program to prevent doctor shopping and stuff like that. And there’s definitely a consumer protection role when it comes to certain things, like the unlicensed practice of medicine. But it’s not the AG’s role to be evaluating medical treatment by licensed professionals.
Medical privacy isn’t some radical libertarian idea, it’s the basic principle behind medical choice, especially those choices that politicians may disagree with.