A reader pointed out last week a point that is often missing in the debate about opioids: Doctors bear part of the blame.
No one gets prescription drugs without a prescription, and physicians must write those. For the market to be as flooded as it is — an astounding 1.83 pain pill prescriptions per every resident of Marion County, according to 2016 federal data — doctors must be part of the equation.
It stretches the imagination when Amy J. Quezon, an attorney trying to get the Marion County Board of Supervisors to sign onto a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies, said that while some doctors are corrupt that some doctors didn’t know the facts about the likelihood of addiction.
“You’ve got some doctors that were lied to,” Quezon said while pointing the finger at drug manufacturers.
It’s been no secret that opioids – made of the same stuff as morphine and heroin – are highly addictive. Wonder if in school those doctors read “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which features a side story about an old woman trying to kick a morphine addiction? Didn’t they graduate in the days before that book was banned? I jest, in part, but it’s clear no one would understand the exact nature of how a drug is addictive than someone trained for years about how the body works.
Simply put, no doctor stumbled blindly into prescribing opioids without knowing the risks. And some are simply crooked.
The police blotter bears that out.
The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency arrested a Rolling Fork doctor in August; in May a Tupelo doctor surrendered his DEA license for allegedly writing prescriptions for himself, family and friends; last year a McComb physician pleaded guilty after being slapped with a 27-count federal indictment for allegedly trading prescription drugs for sex. And the list could go on.
If nothing else, it shows how doctors, probably still the highest-regarded profession, are not above reproach. And maybe they are more likely to commit fraud today when medicine is treated more like a money-making venture than a service to humanity.
Separate from the criminal behavior, there are times when doctors are just too generous when giving people drugs for pain. That’s certainly a difficult call. It’s frustrating for patients who are truly in pain and aren’t going to abuse drugs when they can’t get the medicine that will relieve their suffering. But at the same time, the risk of getting addicted is so high that you wonder if giving patients a bottle of Tylenol – and maybe a piece of wood to bite down on – would be the better course.
It’s possible new laws will be coming up to address the issue. In August, the Governor’s Opioid and Heroin Study Task Force issued its report that includes some recommendations designed to regulate doctors’ ability to prescribe opioids. One recommendation by the group, which included representation by doctors, is to have hospitals report daily to a statewide database the name and location of doctors who write prescriptions. It also says doctors should not write more than a three-day supply of painkillers and shall not do more than a seven-day supply.
Of course, it will be up to the legislature whether to implement those ideas or not. But at least the discussion is being had.
Email csmith@columbianprogress.com.
