In shifting the opioid crisis conversation toward solutions, one recurrent obstacle is our binary way of thinking. Healthcare policy, like media coverage, favors “either/or” categorization of all problems and solutions. We love stories with clear heroes and villains. (If you doubt this, follow the coverage of Purdue Pharma, Insys, or other drugmakers these days.) It … Read more
If you told me that I would get a barrage of angry emails and social media posts for writing The United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain, I would not have believed you . Who could possibly have a problem with my trying to change the conversation to solving the opioid crisis? Read the … Read more
We often speak about the opioid crisis and the suicide crisis – the parallel rises in the rate at which people are overdosing and taking their own lives – as if they are separate and distinct problems. According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data, the rate of fatal drug overdoses for 2017 was over … Read more
For over a year now, media coverage of the opioid crisis has been a steady drumbeat. Almost every day, we see variations on the same stories; another overdose death; the latest lawsuit over deceptive drug marketing; or another story on the Sacklers, founders of Purdue Pharma, and the billions they earned trafficking opioids. For all … Read more
Earlier this week, I was lecturing to public policy students about The United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain at USC, when a student shared that, as a 9th grader, she and her Boston high school had gotten trained on how to administer Narcan (naloxone), the overdose drugs. The school supplied syringes onsite, … Read more
This past weekend, I visited Saddleback Church, the Baptist evangelical megachurch founded by Pastor Rick Warren, the author of, among many other books, The Purpose Driven Life (2002). It was my first time in a church in a long time, and, honestly, blew me away with its powerful, inclusive, and healing message. I came to Saddleback at the invitation of Dr. Ron … Read more
In this week’s New York Times, David Brooks offers a hopeful vision of what we can do with America’s pain — not just the literal chronic pain (afflicting 50 million Americans, 1 in 5 adults), but the pain caused by the opioid crisis and all of America’s other social problems. Parents losing teenagers to overdoses. People feeling isolated, … Read more
Last week’s New York Times talks about New Hampshire’s hesitancy to join other states in decriminalizing and expanding access to marijuana because of fears of the public health risks in the midst of still reckoning with the harm caused by opioids. For my fuller perspective on this issues, read Chapter 9 of The United States of Opioids, where … Read more
