Capitol Report
By State Representative, Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
As most of you know, Hippocrates was a Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Greece), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine.
Today, he is commonly referred to as the “Father of Modern Medicine” in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine.
Hippocrates was also revered for his ethical standards in medical practice and held the belief that physicians had a moral obligation: “to do no harm.” Make no mistake about it, there is a serious opioid epidemic in this country.
The recent death of Prince, who had opioids found near his body when he died, has drawn even more attention to this menacing public scourge.
Here are some frightening facts to consider about this shocking opioid epidemic:
• 78 Americans die every day from overdosing on opioids, which translates as 1 death every 19 minutes
• The U.S. makes up 5% of the global population but consumes 80% of the world’s opioids
• Sales of prescription opioids have quadrupled; while deaths from prescription overdoses have also quadrupled
• 2,000,000 Americans are dependent or misuse pain medication
• On any given day, more than 1,000 people go to the E.R. for misusing prescription opioids.
Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. According to experts, this dramatic spike in heroin use can be directly attributed to easy accessibility of prescription opioids for pain.
People have become so familiar with prescription drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin.
These prescription painkillers among others have actually become the gateway drugs to heroin.
People are less afraid of heroin because after all it’s just another opioid. It stands to reason that these same individuals will eventually level-up to heroin use (or level-down, considering that heroin is much cheaper than their prescription cousins).
Besides, heroin is also more accessible in some areas than even marijuana, alcohol and ecstasy.
But, in all honesty, the medical community, i.e. physicians, must shoulder some of the blame for the pain-pill epidemic. Between 1999 and 2010, sales of these “opioid analgesics”— medications like Vicodin, Percocet, and OxyContin — quadrupled.
Moreover, there has been a boom in the prescribing of narcotics by outpatient doctors, driven partly by the pharmaceutical companies that sold those drugs.
This begs the obvious question: If Hippocrates were alive today, what would he say about the complicity of American physicians in the current opioid epidemic?
Clearly, there’s an abundance of harm being done by some medical professionals.