The Federal government, which as we know, is highly
influenced by the Big Pharma lobbies, has become extremely corrupt in its handling
of many pharmaceuticals. Two specific classes are of huge significance to me:
Pain medications and psychedelics.
Pain Medications:
On seeing that there were so-called “Pill Mills” handing out
too many prescriptions for opiates, for simple things such as broken arms, the Government
handled the situation in a very bad manner. Instead of having a planned,
reasoned approach which managed the situation, they manufactured the “Opiate
Epidemic,” with the result that huge limits were placed on prescribers, and many
were prosecuted.
The result of this was that chronic pain patients like
myself had significant limitations on what we were allowed to get. I was reduced
from 200 mg of Oxycodone a day to 20 mg a day, a 90% reduction!
Many chronic pain patients were cut off cold turkey. So they
did the only thing they could. They turned to street sources, and started
buying pills and heroin. But since they were opiate tolerant, the normal drugs
were not sufficient.
To put this in perspective, for a colonoscopy, the provider
typically uses 50 mcg of Fentanyl, which will blitz if not out right sedate a
normal patient. For me, even 200 mcg of Fentanyl has little effect, even when
administered with Versed, a tranquilizer.
So the drug pushers started adding Fentanyl to the heroin. When
that wasn’t enough, they started using Carfentanyl, the elephant version,
because some people were so resistant to opiates.
The result of this was a huge spike in overdoses, because
the average user couldn’t tolerate these high doses. This created the REAL
Opiate Crisis that we now have, and is why medics often have to use as many as
eight or more doses of Narcan (Nalaxone) on overdose cases. The single dose
that a police officer or citizen carries is grossly insufficient in Fentanyl
and Carfentanyl overdoses for people who are not opiate tolerant.
Further, with more people turning to street opiates, there
are more drug busts, typically amongst people of color, poor people and other oppressed
classes. This just feeds them back into the carceral Prison Industrial Complex,
furthering their oppression.
All of this is due to the MANUFACTURED opiate crisis due to
the government’s mishandling of a small problem and turning it into a big one!
Psychedelics:
In this class there are four main drugs, two natural ones,
psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and cannabis, and two manufactured ones, LSD and
MDMA. The two manufactured drugs were created early in the 20th
century, and were legal until the 1960s.
These four drugs are currently Category I drugs, which by
definition means they have NO POTENTIAL for therapeutic benefit. This is very ironic, given that there are
many research studies done by the National Institutes for Health (NIH) (another
branch of the Federal Government) showing the therapeutic benefit of these
drugs.
All four drugs have proven benefits in mental health. For
example two NIH studies show that a single dose of MDMA will put a combat
veteran’s PTSD in remission.
Cannabis also has proven benefits in pain management, cancer
therapy, glaucoma therapy and other illnesses as well.
So why do these drugs remain Category I? Because of GREED at
the hands of Big Pharma. Since two of these drugs were developed 100 years ago,
and two are natural substances, Big Pharma stands to make no profits. So they
will not allow CONgress and the FDA to remove these drugs from Category I.
The net result is that the corruption in CONgress is
severely harming our people. This MUST stop.
I urge you to contact your
Representatives and Senators and push for changes in legislation on both these
issues, to stop hurting, and start actually helping those of us who are
suffering, and to stop oppressing those who are suffering the worst.