JOHNSON & JOHNSON - OPIOIDS

A press release from the AG of NY:

“Johnson & Johnson helped fuel this fire, but today they’re committing to leaving the opioid business — not only in New York, but across the entire country. Opioids will no longer be manufactured or sold in the United States by J&J,” she stated.

Qui bono.

Not patients legitimately requiring opiates will find it more difficult to obtain pain relief.

www.addictioncenter.com/news/2019/08/gen...ers-opioid-epidemic/

This article was published, 8/2019, is quite brief, it's purpose, to point out that the overwhelming production of oxycodone and other opioids began when the patents ran out and generic production began.

If it can be done please move this topic to the Science Lab. It has no political motives.

800,000 Americans have died from opiate abuse, and a disproportionate amount are African American. But I can also see the flip side. I know an 80 year old bed ridden woman who finds it harder and harder to get the pain medication she needs to make life bearable.

FredHayek wrote: I know an 80 year old bed ridden woman who finds it harder and harder to get the pain medication she needs to make life bearable.

I know a 61-year-old woman who had severe trauma that is surgically untreatable and lives with intense pain every day and will for the rest of her life. She has been seeing pain management doctors for the last 10 years, after her car was hit by a snowplow on 285 in a snowstorm and lives in constant, intense pain. The only thing that has helped her are opioid pain medication, taken daily, with morphine for occasional "breakthrough" pain. She also has found it harder and harder to obtain medication. Some pharmacists in Colorado have even refused to fill her legal monthly prescriptions.

Fred and Wayne offer 2 examples of patients hurt by the current drug policies, "collateral damage" or "friendly fire", take your choice.
Opiates are outstanding medications for their intended purpose, i.e. the relief of pain. They have been abused since they were discovered. That is a problem with the user's psychological make-up. The Federal and State governments, in their efforts to deal with drug abuse have hurt the innocent.

Drug companies produce the opiods, doctors prescribe the opiods for appropriate patients, pharmacists fill the opioid prescriptions. In the ideal world that would be it. Unfortunately we are not in the ideal world.
In reality there are individuals that relish in the side effects of the opioids and make every attempt to obtain them. The government tries to stop this by restricting the companies, doctors, and pharmacists, who they believe are the gate keepers.
The reaction: companies stop making the opioids; doctors prescribe alternative drugs that are not as efficacious; pharmacists refuse to fill opioids prescriptions or do not stock the opioids in their facility.
End result - the cases that Fred and Wayne mentioned.

Methamphetamines, Ecstasy and other pharmaceuticals are another story. They can be produced with relative ease (I think there was a TV series about a high school teacher who did just that.)
An entirely different approach should be used with these drugs.

This is a perfect example of not every problem is either/or. There are no easy solutions. Just like alcohol, most people won't abuse it, but enough people do so it becomes a major problem for society.