The opioid epidemic in the U.S. has claimed an astonishing and horrifying 381,000 American lives through drug overdoses from 2005-2018, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Center for Health Statistics, and has driven at least one big pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, into bankruptcy as state and federal officials seek vast sums in compensation for this humanitarian and public health crisis. But lawsuits and legal settlements are clearly insufficient to deal with the crisis going forward, as the main focus should be on prevention and treatment to stop opioid overdose deaths. On that note The Guardian has published an op-ed by a physician, Ann Robinson, calling for new tools for doctors to treat pain in the UK and elsewhere.
- Although the UK hasn’t suffered an opioid epidemic on anything like the scale of the U.S., Robinson notes that all the conditions are there: in 2017-18, 13% of British adults had received a prescription for opioid painkillers, while 25% had received a prescription for at least one of a number of other possibly addictive drugs, including benzodiazepines such as Valium or Xanax.
- One alternative, medical cannabis, may come to be more widely prescribed but also presents its own problems (although the recent widespread adoption of CBD shows there is promise for derivatives without THC, source of cannabis’ psychedelic qualities). Robinson notes that “a recent Commons select committee report concluded that we needed more evidence of its effectiveness and safety before relaxing the current guidance.”
- While new drugs are definitely needed, Robinson points out that pharmaceutical companies are largely focused on drugs to cure or treat disease, such as the new generation of biologics.
- Robinson concludes that, “in an ideal world, doctors like me would at least be able to offer a range of talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy, physiotherapy, acupuncture and treatments involving electrical stimulation, as well as measures to tackle the worry and isolation that are the hallmarks of chronic pain.” However all this would require more time and financial resources for the UK’s overtaxed NHS – and likely America’s Medicare system as well.
