re: Now we have Narcan resistant Fentanyl

Poorly worded. Its not a damn virus

USA is China's biggest customer. They destroy us, they lose their arse.

Teva pharmaceuticals is capitalizing on the opioid epidemic. The nasal narcan is only available from them, in a bulky two dose box for $150. The auto injector dosage form (“Evzio” by Kaleo) costs even more.

Few insurances cover the above dose forms reasonably; a majority of the population that needs to buy them aren’t insured and can’t afford them.

The active ingredient naloxone comes in a cheaper generic for injection in a vial that requires to be pulled out with a syringe. At my pharmacy, I pack those vials in kits with pictorial instructions and a counseling sheet and sell them for low cost from behind the counter by request.

It would not surprise me if a brand-only, more concentrated, more expensive injection Naloxone is developed to address the fentanyl problem. It will likely be made in China.

Opioid overdoses aren’t always junkies.

The cost barrier to naloxone access is a big part of the opioid death epidemic.

Will reduce the gene pool. If you are that dead set at dying, so be it

Really shameful some of these comments

How many of you smoke? How many of you drink? How many of you dip? GREAT. When liver failure, lung cancer, or mouth cancer destroys your life... welp too bad glad to have another stupid person out of the gene pool.

The opioid crisis isn’t being perpetuated by a random 20 year old who said “yeah frick being a productive human, being a heroin zombie looks great, give me a needle!”

The opioid crisis went like this:

1
The pharmaceutical companies make painkillers. “Man how can we really drive up our sales?” Well what did they do? They, a company, went around to medical societies and paying the right people to start treating pain as the fourth vital sign. “How’s your pain? Oh... a 10?.... well..... I guess I’m supposed to throw some morphine at it per new mandates.”

It wasn’t just doctors acting on their own. Doctor reimbursement then started becoming incentivized by patient satisfaction scores. Have a patient in pain? I guess I can satisfy that with some opioids. I am actively being driven by incentives to make the patient happy at all costs, and new treatment guidelines.

Therefore long term prescriptions of painkillers sky rockets.

2
OxyContin gets invented. Longer lasting. Stronger. Purdue Pharma actively goes around to hospitals and doctors offices saying “HEY! We see what’s going on, you need happy patients, and your patients are in pain! OxyContin is the answer!”

Their share prices skyrocket

3
So now effectively you have a “quiet addiction” to painkillers that has been smoldering out of the limelight for DECADES. Your aunt has a painful shoulder? Some doctor gives her Pringle’s cans full of Percocet. Your neighbor is paraplegic and has strange neurological pains... but some doctor gives them opioids because they didn’t know what to do.

So now you have MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of pills out there.

You have millions of people taking chronic opioids. But ALSO Adults steal them from others. Kids get a hold of them. College students take them from their grandparents’ medicine cabinet.

4
And here’s the lighting of the match the blows the entire thing through the roof.

The CDC and medical societies and what have you uncover the real data. And actually start listening to doctor’s complaints and uneasy feelings about dishing this crap out.

What do we do as a country?

Severely limiting the access to pain killers. You can only prescribe 10 at a time. You can only get them from certain specialists. You can only get it for a one month period. HAve you tried Tylenol? Have you tried meditation? Acupuncture?

So now you have MILLIONS of ADDICTS - who never KNEW they were addicts. But suddenly you cut off their supply. Their pain maybe comes back? Who cares. Their reward center is TOTALLY fricked now. Their brain ONLY releases warm fuzzy chemicals that makes life tolerable when their mu-opioid receptor is having its skull bashed in with a sledgehammer.

Where can I find some narcotics?

I buy a handful of Percocet from my coworker I confided in. Then I buy a stolen bottle from a local drug dealer. But that runs out. Now I need more. Heroin? Really? Me? Are you sure I can be safe with it? I score a baggie from the same drug dealer.

Yes. That’s it. I feel fine now.

This is how it started. This is how it goes.

College kids. Regular junkies. Housewives. Grandfathers. Bartenders. Lawyers. Business executives. Nurses.

The inception of this whole epidemic is one of the most sinister things perpetrated upon us.

It is our crack epidemic.

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It's a choice they made, and it's on them completely.

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It’s on everyone. We are all paying for this directly and indirectly via EMS and the ER and costly brand name name reversal agents.

If the Naloxone was available for dirt cheap it would save a lot of lives and emergency resources. Whoever said they are against it for users is a fricking idiot. And believe me, the “junkies” aren’t the ones administering it to themselves. It’s a loved one, acquaintance, or a bystander.

That’s a stable well adjusted moral compass you have there.

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If the Naloxone was available for dirt cheap it would save a lot of lives and emergency resources

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just because we could, does it mean we should?