Thursday, January 17, 2008

Is Drug Rehab Really The Responsibility Of The Prescription Drug Addict?

It's amazing how one little word can change the significance of a sentence that yearns to intend something else. The new prescribing ordinances from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) covering Agenda two drugs incorporates just such as a word: "undue." It says that doctors should "not make an not due hazard of recreation or maltreatment of the medication" they prescribe. Since Agenda two drugs include opiates like OxyContin and Vicodin, such as a hazard could obviously take to dependences and drug rehab, not to advert hurt or death.

My three inquiries about the word "undue" are these:

1. Are there an appropriate, proper or justified hazard of recreation or abuse?

2. If so, what parametric quantities or statuses represent such as an appropriate, proper or justified hazard of recreation or abuse? In other words, when is the hazard of addiction, drug detox, drug rehab, injury, or even death, an appropriate 1 for a physician to take?

3. When is the patient, if ever, fully informed and asked to lend to the decision?

Somehow, apparently, docs are supposed to cognize what represents an "appropriate" versus an "inappropriate" risk. I'm wondering if it's taught in Master of Education school, or if there's a enchiridion somewhere. I don't believe so, but I could be wrong.

But nice docs acquire trapped every twenty-four hours by lying, symptom-faking doctor-shoppers World Health Organization con prescriptions out of them. Are the physician guilty of "undue" risk? I don't know. These sorts of inquiries aren't answered in the DEA regulations. But docs are often called up on complaints that they over-prescribed or wrongly prescribed some controlled substance, usually resulting in dependance leading to drug rehab, injury, illicit prescription gross sales or sudden, unexpected deaths.

Thousands of prescription drug nuts hooked on narcotics like OxyContin or Vicodin will state you that dependence or dependence leading to the demand for drug rehab don't necessitate an incompetent or unethical doctor. All that's needed is a supply of prescription narcotics taken exactly as prescribed, plus some oddity in your personal metamorphosis or something else - and in many of these cases, no 1 cognizes for sure. And that's Associate in Nursing of import point. No one, anywhere, cognizes for certain World Health Organization will go addicted and who won't.

And because of this, no 1 really cognizes the impact that the small word "undue" should have got on the possible blameworthiness of doctors for patients who who take their prescriptions as directed, go addicted and end up in drug rehab, or worse. If I was a doctor, I'd be asking where the habit-forming nature of some prescription drugs stops and the "undue" hazards begin.

As for the one thousands of unfortunate prescription drug nuts who didn't travel looking for addiction, I'd be thought it might not be "undue" to speak to a lawyer about who's really responsible for the drug rehab program, along with certain hurting and suffering. And I might be thought Big Pharma. Wouldn't you?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This is a thoughtful and apt piece. As the director of Novus Medical Detox, we see many people addicted to OxyContin, legal heroin, who just did what they were told by their doctors. This is one reason that Purdue Pharma paid fines of $600+ million for falsely promoting OxyContin.

Some people's DNA and metabolism does make them more susceptible to dependence and addiction and either way the withdrawal is painful. We now have protocols that make it much more comfortable but the real problem is treating the symptoms and not the cause. I was told in the 1980's that I would be on pain killers but I found other solutions and have not taken them.

Steve Hayes
htttp://www.novusdetox.com