Methadone prescriptions have been on the rise in Oregon because it is a cheap and effective pain reliever. It's usually associated with people coming off heroin addictions, but methadone is also a good, but very addictive alternative (with less side effects) to opium/morphine based pain relievers like OxyContin. Opiates provide users with a euphoric rush, while methadone at prescription levels does not though if taken at higher levels, it can give a sense of well-being. So, while there are risks of methadone abuse (and it can be a very difficult addiction to kick), they are
generally considered lower than with opiate pain relievers.
The Oregon Health Plan (OHP), looking for smart ways to stretch its funding, approved the prescribing of methadone a few years ago it costs just 10-15 percent of what OxyContin does per dose. As money has become an even greater concern for OHP and the drumbeat regards OxyContin abuse has increased, little wonder methadone prescriptions and methadone abuse are on the rise. By the by, the VA has also increased its use of methadone for similar reasons...I don't know if its patients' rate of abuse is up.
Instead of emphasizing efforts to address the mental issues of patients who are in pain, some authorities are simply pressuring doctors who appear to be aggressively prescribing pain relievers. As you can probably tell, this is a continuation of yesterday's thoughts on how agencies fighting
drug abuse end up scaring doctors out of prescribing pain relievers for suffering patients.
Here are a couple excerpts of typical scary and misleading article on how
methadone use is adversely impacting us in Oregon.
In 2002, methadone killed 103 Oregonians two more than heroin making it the state’s most lethal drug.
Use of the drug has seen a dramatic spike.
In Southern Oregon, for instance, methadone use grew more than threefold during the past three years, according to data compiled by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. In January 2001, Jackson and Josephine county pharmacies sold about 1,000 grams of methadone per month. By midsummer 2003, they were selling 3,500 grams per month.
Since methadone is being prescribed more in place of other
drugs, are deaths from those other drugs down ? Do medical experts doubt the proper medical justification for any of the methadone prescriptions ? How many of the overdoses were accidental folks seeking a high instead of taking the drug as recommended ? How many of the overdoses were successful suicide attempts? Since chronic pain can bring with it depression, are OHP doctors doing the necessary psychological evaluation of patients to determine if they need help to relieve both physical and mental pain?
Without answers to these types of questions, the methadone death statistics are not in context and may be no cause for concern.
Lisa Taylor of Eagle Point lost her brother to methadone in the spring. She knew something wasn’t right when they talked on the phone the night before he died.
“He sounded funny,” she says. “I thought he was intoxicated.”
The next day, she got a call from her brother’s landlord, who said, “You need to come here real quick.”
Jackson County sheriff’s deputies found Taylor’s body and a prescription bottle for 60 methadone tablets, filled two days earlier. Only five pills were left in the bottle.
“Folks are feeling better after they take one,” said Tim Pike, a Jackson County sheriff’s detective and a deputy medical examiner. “And they think, ‘If one made me feel better, two or three will make me feel even better.’ For people who are not used to it, a couple could be lethal.”
Lisa Taylor's brother didn't take 2 or 3 extra methadone, he took around 50...that's not an accidental overdose. People develop a tolerance to methadone over time, but 50 will be lethal to just about everybody. It's sad that the instructions from the doctor, the directions on the label of the pill bottle, and information sheet provided with the prescription weren't enough to protect the victim from killing himself.
If the AP was attempting to be balanced, the article would have also gone into the victim's state of mind, any history of depression or mental illness (and how the doctors were addressing those issues), the amount of pain he'd been in, etc. Instead, the article is written as if the suicide might be the OHP's fault but provides no evidence to back up the insinuations. If that's the best AP can do, our state's newspapers shouldn't purchase and publish such articles.
UPDATE: Here I am criticizing the quality of the AP article, and I not once but twice in the opening paragraph of this post (since fixed) made a huge error saying that methadone was not addictive. WRONG! I'm surprised that brain cramp wasn't fatal, and still can't believe I didn't catch the error.
The above information thankfully comes from the roguepundit.typepad.com at the following
link.
