We're not responsible for being obese?

richardgavel

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/27/opinions/life-expectancy-corporations-opinion-sachs/index.html

Just read this article on CNN and it really infuriated me. I think the line that was the toughest to stomach was "While the obesity and opioid epidemics are sometimes written off as "bad life choices," these epidemics are largely the handiworks of an irresponsible corporate sector." More and more, we're being told that we're not responsible for our own actions, that our lives, our own destinies, are the result of the actions of others and not ourselves. You're overweight? Blame the soda/fast food vendors? Trump won the election? Blame Russia.

</rant>

CSARdiver

This is how the establishment stays established. It's not your fault.

lemurcat12

The article is annoying, but I think it's important to distinguish between two separate things:

(1) Are you ultimately responsible for your choices and are there things you should and can do to help yourself make better choices? Do you have a significant degree of choice in what you do, including (of course) what you eat? Yes, and that is important for people to realize when it comes to weight loss and maintenance.

(2) Are there also societal (cultural and other) influences on how people as a group act, on average that may affect what we do? Of course this is also true. We aren't just fatter now because we got lazy and weak compared to people in the past. Put us in the same situations as them, and them as us, and you'd probably get the exact same results as you have now (and did then) -- it's not that people are different, but that circumstances do affect behavior. (This can be such things as having no option but to move more, less food availability (which is not inherently good, obviously), and different cultural norms and taught behaviors.) To compare something like addiction (which the CNN piece did, I'm not convinced that's a great comparison here), clearly people ARE responsible for their own behaviors, but that doesn't change the fact that cultural norms and attitudes and availability and family background WILL make a statistical difference in behavior on average. We can acknowledge this and think about whether there is anything that can be done to tilt outcomes in a better direction without absolving people of responsibility. In fact, understanding what the influences are can be very helpful.

michael1976_ca

yup blame the corporation they personally fed me all the crap I liked to eat back then. it's there fault I got type 2 diabetes too. i'm sick of hearing people put the blame on others when it's are own fault. I own up to it. I ate like a pig back then. now not so much.

Morgaath

"A recent expose in the New Yorker and lawsuits filed against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, allege that the company pursued a marketing campaign that pushed OxyContin onto doctors. According to the article, Purdue allegedly did not adequately study the risks of OxyContin, paid off doctors to ignore them and pushed aggressive advertising despite growing concerns and evidence of an addiction crisis." --- So basically tobacco industry tactics, in which the "experts" say the product isn't really dangerous, all in the never ending fight for profits.

NorthCascades

I feel like this idea of blame is wasted time and brainpower in most cases. The important question isn't whose fault is this, it's what can I do about it. Don't get distracted with the blame game, focus on what you can do to make things better in your item life and maybe beyond.

Unknown

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janejellyroll

lemurcat12 wrote: »

The article is annoying, but I think it's important to distinguish between two separate things:

(1) Are you ultimately responsible for your choices and are there things you should and can do to help yourself make better choices? Do you have a significant degree of choice in what you do, including (of course) what you eat? Yes, and that is important for people to realize when it comes to weight loss and maintenance.

(2) Are there also societal (cultural and other) influences on how people as a group act, on average that may affect what we do? Of course this is also true. We aren't just fatter now because we got lazy and weak compared to people in the past. Put us in the same situations as them, and them as us, and you'd probably get the exact same results as you have now (and did then) -- it's not that people are different, but that circumstances do affect behavior. (This can be such things as having no option but to move more, less food availability (which is not inherently good, obviously), and different cultural norms and taught behaviors.) To compare something like addiction (which the CNN piece did, I'm not convinced that's a great comparison here), clearly people ARE responsible for their own behaviors, but that doesn't change the fact that cultural norms and attitudes and availability and family background WILL make a statistical difference in behavior on average. We can acknowledge this and think about whether there is anything that can be done to tilt outcomes in a better direction without absolving people of responsibility. In fact, understanding what the influences are can be very helpful.

I'm of the opinion that trying to identify and understand the influences on my behavior can help me exercise more responsibility.

Trying to make all the "right decisions" without accounting for and understanding your environment is like trying to swim upstream.

A recent example comes to mind: my husband and I watched a news show last year that discussed the trend of over-prescription of strong, potentially addictive painkillers in emergency room settings for patients with things like broken bones who probably didn't need that level of pain management and how it was potentially driving new addictions. A few months later, my husband broke his wrist in a fall. In the emergency room, they gave him a prescription for the exact type of painkiller mentioned in the story. Based on the news story combined with the level of pain that he was feeling, he decided not to fill the prescription. Knowing the overall trend allowed him to make a better decision. I don't doubt his personal responsibility and will power for a minute, but knowing there are all sorts of people struggling with addiction problems with the US I'm glad we were aware and could avoid unnecessarily bringing a highly addictive substance into our lives (we both come from families with histories of addiction).

lemurcat12

Again, two separate questions:

I am fat (or addicted), what can I do about it? Focusing on societal influences is probably not that helpful, focusing on what you can do (and understanding that YOU CAN fix the problem) is.

The obesity rate is terrible or there are lots of people in certain parts of the country addicted to opiates (or even we don't have enough high school graduates who go on to study science, math, engineering, and technology). Is there something we can do about this?

Acknowledging societal and cultural influences is not new.

MonkeyMel21

People used to smoke constantly, in the house, the car, buildings, etc. Decades later we realize the effect.

Sugary foods/drinks/fast food became hugely popular and massed produced over a few decades and now we're realizing the effects.

Pain medications became more and more prescribed and now we are realizing the effects.

Antibiotics became prescribed as a general rule more and more, and now we are realizing the effects.

I mean, come on. We didn't, as a society, get fat all of a sudden. There is waaaaay more to it than just "bad life choices". That being said. Now that we are realizing the effects of the boom of all these things since the industrial revolution, we can gain more knowledge and be mindful of them. None of these "crisis" happened over night. I don't think blame is an answer to anything here. I don't know what the answer is though. It's not like we can just go back to before these mega corporations have influenced literally every move we make.

rsclause

Blame the rich corporation, sue the rich insurance company. People have fallen into the mindset that they are owed something and life is about winning the lotto at others expense. They never feel accountable for their own actions. It can also never be explained that they could be unlucky and have an accident. No, it's somebody else's fault and they are going to pay for it. I hate this mentality but the joke is on them. I (and others) raise my prices to pay for the $20,000.00 of insurance I carry and that doesn't even include my personal insurance. In the end we all pay for it and the attorney gets half of every settlement.

Unknown

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MonkeyMel21

JerSchmare wrote: »

^^^kinda made some huge leaps there from smoking to sugary food to drugs to antibiotics. Not sure how all that fits together.

Societal influences is the point.

MonkeyMel21

Societal influences and effects that aren't realized till later.

JeromeBarry1

There is a way in which a corporation can be considered responsible for the opioid crisis. That company is Perdue Pharmaceutical, the creator of OxyContin. It isn't that creating OxyContin is the problem. Rather, it is that Perdue lobbied, advocated, and convinced doctors that pain was a vital sign. Pain is the only symptom which doctors cannot measure, and must be reported by the patient. That means anyone who wants OxyContin or narcotics can claim pain and satisfy many doctors to give them a prescription for pain. That is why the FDA can identify pharmacies in low-population areas with records of filling many millions of doses of narcotics. The pharmacy is legal. The prescriptions are legal. The doctors are within the law. The whole mess arises from the lobbying efforts of Perdue decades ago when they had a new product to sell and needed to redefine vital signs to sell their pain relieving product.

However, my exposure to drug addiction in my life has nothing to do with Oxy and Perdue. My mother became addicted to pain medications from an injury in 1939. She told me stories of a neighboring farm wife who was addicted to opioids easily accessible in veterinary medications purchased at the neighborhood feed store. My father was raised during the Prohibition years and they both told me stories of moonshiners and liquor merchants providing product under the nose of Jess Sweeten. You can see Jess's Wikipedia page. He remains a legendarily tenacious pursuer of criminals. However, the family stories I heard had him as the buffoon who couldn't find stuff.
Just this week here on mfp I've seen one recommend to another that a restricted drug be found in a feed store among the veterinary products. The point of this paragraph is that individuals are and have always been responsible for their own behavior far more than corporations and governments are.

lemurcat12

janejellyroll wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

The article is annoying, but I think it's important to distinguish between two separate things:

(1) Are you ultimately responsible for your choices and are there things you should and can do to help yourself make better choices? Do you have a significant degree of choice in what you do, including (of course) what you eat? Yes, and that is important for people to realize when it comes to weight loss and maintenance.

(2) Are there also societal (cultural and other) influences on how people as a group act, on average that may affect what we do? Of course this is also true. We aren't just fatter now because we got lazy and weak compared to people in the past. Put us in the same situations as them, and them as us, and you'd probably get the exact same results as you have now (and did then) -- it's not that people are different, but that circumstances do affect behavior. (This can be such things as having no option but to move more, less food availability (which is not inherently good, obviously), and different cultural norms and taught behaviors.) To compare something like addiction (which the CNN piece did, I'm not convinced that's a great comparison here), clearly people ARE responsible for their own behaviors, but that doesn't change the fact that cultural norms and attitudes and availability and family background WILL make a statistical difference in behavior on average. We can acknowledge this and think about whether there is anything that can be done to tilt outcomes in a better direction without absolving people of responsibility. In fact, understanding what the influences are can be very helpful.

I'm of the opinion that trying to identify and understand the influences on my behavior can help me exercise more responsibility.

Trying to make all the "right decisions" without accounting for and understanding your environment is like trying to swim upstream.

A recent example comes to mind: my husband and I watched a news show last year that discussed the trend of over-prescription of strong, potentially addictive painkillers in emergency room settings for patients with things like broken bones who probably didn't need that level of pain management and how it was potentially driving new addictions. A few months later, my husband broke his wrist in a fall. In the emergency room, they gave him a prescription for the exact type of painkiller mentioned in the story. Based on the news story combined with the level of pain that he was feeling, he decided not to fill the prescription. Knowing the overall trend allowed him to make a better decision. I don't doubt his personal responsibility and will power for a minute, but knowing there are all sorts of people struggling with addiction problems with the US I'm glad we were aware and could avoid unnecessarily bringing a highly addictive substance into our lives (we both come from families with histories of addiction).

Yeah, great example.

lemurcat12

Here's another example: I'm aware that people driving everywhere and not getting as much activity over the course of the day is one driver of the overall population increase in bodyweight. Thus, when I decided to lose weight, one of the first things I did was decide that I would walk absolutely everywhere that was possible, changed my commute to the L (which is more pleasant than the bus anyway), even though it meant walking over half a mile to the stop, and biking to work or running one way as much as possible. When I am not otherwise walking much on a day I might get off the L early and walk an extra mile or 2. I don't worry about looking dumb and pace across the platform if I have a long wait for the next train.

Knowing that there are societal changes that related to weight gain doesn't mean I am claiming I am powerless.

GottaBurnEmAll

janejellyroll wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

The article is annoying, but I think it's important to distinguish between two separate things:

(1) Are you ultimately responsible for your choices and are there things you should and can do to help yourself make better choices? Do you have a significant degree of choice in what you do, including (of course) what you eat? Yes, and that is important for people to realize when it comes to weight loss and maintenance.

(2) Are there also societal (cultural and other) influences on how people as a group act, on average that may affect what we do? Of course this is also true. We aren't just fatter now because we got lazy and weak compared to people in the past. Put us in the same situations as them, and them as us, and you'd probably get the exact same results as you have now (and did then) -- it's not that people are different, but that circumstances do affect behavior. (This can be such things as having no option but to move more, less food availability (which is not inherently good, obviously), and different cultural norms and taught behaviors.) To compare something like addiction (which the CNN piece did, I'm not convinced that's a great comparison here), clearly people ARE responsible for their own behaviors, but that doesn't change the fact that cultural norms and attitudes and availability and family background WILL make a statistical difference in behavior on average. We can acknowledge this and think about whether there is anything that can be done to tilt outcomes in a better direction without absolving people of responsibility. In fact, understanding what the influences are can be very helpful.

I'm of the opinion that trying to identify and understand the influences on my behavior can help me exercise more responsibility.

Trying to make all the "right decisions" without accounting for and understanding your environment is like trying to swim upstream.

A recent example comes to mind: my husband and I watched a news show last year that discussed the trend of over-prescription of strong, potentially addictive painkillers in emergency room settings for patients with things like broken bones who probably didn't need that level of pain management and how it was potentially driving new addictions. A few months later, my husband broke his wrist in a fall. In the emergency room, they gave him a prescription for the exact type of painkiller mentioned in the story. Based on the news story combined with the level of pain that he was feeling, he decided not to fill the prescription. Knowing the overall trend allowed him to make a better decision. I don't doubt his personal responsibility and will power for a minute, but knowing there are all sorts of people struggling with addiction problems with the US I'm glad we were aware and could avoid unnecessarily bringing a highly addictive substance into our lives (we both come from families with histories of addiction).

That's a great take on the subject.

NorthCascades

janejellyroll wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

The article is annoying, but I think it's important to distinguish between two separate things:

(1) Are you ultimately responsible for your choices and are there things you should and can do to help yourself make better choices? Do you have a significant degree of choice in what you do, including (of course) what you eat? Yes, and that is important for people to realize when it comes to weight loss and maintenance.

(2) Are there also societal (cultural and other) influences on how people as a group act, on average that may affect what we do? Of course this is also true. We aren't just fatter now because we got lazy and weak compared to people in the past. Put us in the same situations as them, and them as us, and you'd probably get the exact same results as you have now (and did then) -- it's not that people are different, but that circumstances do affect behavior. (This can be such things as having no option but to move more, less food availability (which is not inherently good, obviously), and different cultural norms and taught behaviors.) To compare something like addiction (which the CNN piece did, I'm not convinced that's a great comparison here), clearly people ARE responsible for their own behaviors, but that doesn't change the fact that cultural norms and attitudes and availability and family background WILL make a statistical difference in behavior on average. We can acknowledge this and think about whether there is anything that can be done to tilt outcomes in a better direction without absolving people of responsibility. In fact, understanding what the influences are can be very helpful.

A few months later, my husband broke his wrist in a fall. In the emergency room, they gave him a prescription for the exact type of painkiller mentioned in the story. Based on the news story combined with the level of pain that he was feeling, he decided not to fill the prescription. Knowing the overall trend allowed him to make a better decision. I don't doubt his personal responsibility and will power for a minute, but knowing there are all sorts of people struggling with addiction problems with the US I'm glad we were aware and could avoid unnecessarily bringing a highly addictive substance into our lives (we both come from families with histories of addiction).

I would have filled the prescription, and if I didn't need it immediately, put it away in my backpack. If anything ever happens when I'm ten miles from the nearest road...

AnvilHead

JerSchmare wrote: »

^^^kinda made some huge leaps there from smoking to sugary food to drugs to antibiotics. Not sure how all that fits together.

The underlying victim mentality. Which is more pervasive in today's society than any other addiction/epidemic.

NorthCascades

Why does it matter who other people blame for their troubles? People who are ready to take responsibility will.

Unknown

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AnnPT77

Big corporations are in business to make money. They make the most money when they figure out what we collectively really, really want - not what we say we want, but what we really want - and sell it to us cheaply in massive amounts.

When I was in MBA school, the marketing profs made it clear that marketing's magic formula was to figure out what people en masse truly want, then advertise it to us as being what we think we ought to want. This is the explanation of 800-calorie crispy chicken salads (with Newman's Own charity-enhanced dressing) and nutrition-sparse chocolate chip marshmallow caramel nutty granola bars. If they make those ubiquitous, super convenient and cheap enough for us to buy plenty, we will.

A few decades back, there was public compassionate pressure to relax restrictions on strong pain relievers, because it was felt that people with chronic pain were being cruelly under-treated. Pain clinics sprang up, some regs were relaxed. Now we have an opioid crisis. Unrelated?

Walt Kelly, way, way back, got it right in a vintage Pogo comic strip: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Individual decisions and actions create the large social forces, as well as being shaped by them. We have substantial control; we have no *baby feline* idea how to wield that force for good.

pamfgil

It's not an either/or situation, you can look at your own life and routines and make deliberate gradual changes to eat less and move more, but it is also possible for government and other groups to make changes that would lead to smaller portions and more incidental movement on a societal level. For example the office building I work at is high security and the only time I get access to the stairs is for fire drills. They could have supplied the same security to exit from the stairs as they do for the lifts

Unknown

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lporter229

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Big corporations are in business to make money. They make the most money when they figure out what we collectively really, really want - not what we say we want, but what we really want - and sell it to us cheaply in massive amounts.

When I was in MBA school, the marketing profs made it clear that marketing's magic formula was to figure out what people en masse truly want, then advertise it to us as being what we think we ought to want. This is the explanation of 800-calorie crispy chicken salads (with Newman's Own charity-enhanced dressing) and nutrition-sparse chocolate chip marshmallow caramel nutty granola bars. If they make those ubiquitous, super convenient and cheap enough for us to buy plenty, we will.

A few decades back, there was public compassionate pressure to relax restrictions on strong pain relievers, because it was felt that people with chronic pain were being cruelly under-treated. Pain clinics sprang up, some regs were relaxed. Now we have an opioid crisis. Unrelated?

Walt Kelly, way, way back, got it right in a vintage Pogo comic strip: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Individual decisions and actions create the large social forces, as well as being shaped by them. We have substantial control; we have no *baby feline* idea how to wield that force for good.

Fantastic post

lemurcat12

There was a good interview on the history of the painkiller epidemic between Russ Roberts (of EconoTalk) and Sam Quinones (who wrote Dreamland, which I've been meaning to read for a while), and it seems there is a transcript of some sections, at least. The first part is on the heroin issue, but scroll down to get to Oxy et al. (you have to scroll to get to the transcript of the interview first).

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/01/sam_quinones_on.html

Beginning:

"Russ Roberts: So, let's switch gears. Let's talk about painkillers. How did painkillers become a problem? It seems like there was this great new set of painkillers out, oxycontin and others. Why did they end up getting misused and abused?

Sam Quinones: Yeah. That was the--I backed into this story. Because of my background in Mexico, I really focused first on the heroin traffickers. But then, of course, I was left with the question: Why is it that they have so much new demand? Because they were now, by then, by the time I doing it, they were now in Ohio, West Virginia, places like that. And so that got me on to this other story that was really the first story, a really far larger story. And that begins, really, in the 1980s as well, about the same time, when pain management is just beginning to be kind of a new discipline within medicine that you study, and a whole group of pain specialists began to form a collective consciousness and believe that we were not treating pain correctly--that there were these pills, opiate painkillers out there, and doctors all across the country were unwilling to use these, and that this was not a reasonable proposition. That these pills ought to be far more liberally used. And at first they made the argument, 'We need to use these for hospice care folks, people dying of cancer, whatnot, in order to improve their last months on earth. What does it matter if they are addicted to these pills? Who cares if they are addicted to these pills if they also live the last 3 months of their lives pain-free?' And that made a lot of sense. That was a very logical argument: that folks would die in utter pain because doctors were afraid they would be addicted. But these folks made a different argument. They, however, kept pushing; and that's why we're here today. They didn't stop with just hospice care. They began to make the argument that virtually all of these pills, 'We now know--science now knows--that, you know, 5000 years of experience with the opium poppy be damned, we now know that these pills are virtually non-addictive when used to treat pain.' And they began to push. They were joined in this after a while by certain pharmaceutical companies who were producing some of these pills, main one being Purdue Pharma, which makes the pill Oxycontin. And they took up the call of these guys. I had one doctor say, 'If it hadn't been for the pain specialists, the pharmaceutical companies would have had nobody to footnote, to use to say this is why we're doing these, we're producing these pills.' But had it not been for the pharmaceutical companies, these pain specialists would have been without a megaphone. And so the combination of those two together, particularly as the 1990s progressed, becomes very, very potent....

31:45
Russ Roberts: And as you point out, millions of people, who were in horrible pain weren't any more. So that was the good side. The bad side was the promised non-addictive aspect of oxycontin, which was the slow-release part--the idea that oxycontin was continuous was supposed to dampen the addictive part. Two things happened. One, people figured out a way to get around that by sucking off the coating that slowed the release; or hitting it with a hammer. So that was problem Number One. Problem Number Two is--I think; correct me if I'm wrong--that there were people who got addicted anyway, even though it was slow-release.

Sam Quinones: Yes. Right. They were following doctors' orders and they would still get addicted. And part of the problem, too, was that along with the idea that these pills were no longer addictive when used to treat pain, came the corollary which was then that there was no limit on dose. So, you began to see all across the country doctors prescribing enormous quantities of these pills for patients to take home with them after acute surgery, for acute pain after surgery. Now, this is pain that is probably going to last you, oh, no more than 3-5 days. If it lasts more than 5 days there's something else wrong. But, they would prescribe 30 days' worth of Vicodin or Oxycontin--these are common--Vicodin is another common opiate painkiller. And so what happened is--and then--and this was happening all across the country--an enormous new supply of opiates was created across the country; and a fair amount of that, a good amount of that leaked out into the black market. I believe this--when I was in Mexico, I believed that all drug stories were demand-driven, and that drug scourges were created by demand for those drugs. Now, when I did this book, this changed my mind, honestly: I came to think that really most drug problems begin because of excess supply--easy, cheap availability of a drug. And that's exactly what happened here. We have a new, a massive new supply of opiate painkillers from coast to coast, all across the country, because it's doctors who buy in to this idea. A couple of generations of doctors buy into the idea that they now need to very aggressively prescribe these things to treat our pain. And some are pushed or pressured. Legally you have to do this: If you don't treat pain, you can be sued. Some, it's insurance pressures; if we don't push people through our clinic we won't be able to reimburse enough to keep the lights on. But, whatever the case, doctors all across the country come to this idea that they need to do this. And that is what creates a massive and continuous new supply of opiate painkillers for the last 20 years, from coast to coast...."

janejellyroll

lemurcat12 wrote: »

There was a good interview on the history of the painkiller epidemic between Russ Roberts (of EconoTalk) and Sam Quinones (who wrote Dreamland, which I've been meaning to read for a while), and it seems there is a transcript of some sections, at least. The first part is on the heroin issue, but scroll down to get to Oxy et al. (you have to scroll to get to the transcript of the interview first).

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/01/sam_quinones_on.html

Beginning:

"Russ Roberts: So, let's switch gears. Let's talk about painkillers. How did painkillers become a problem? It seems like there was this great new set of painkillers out, oxycontin and others. Why did they end up getting misused and abused?

Sam Quinones: Yeah. That was the--I backed into this story. Because of my background in Mexico, I really focused first on the heroin traffickers. But then, of course, I was left with the question: Why is it that they have so much new demand? Because they were now, by then, by the time I doing it, they were now in Ohio, West Virginia, places like that. And so that got me on to this other story that was really the first story, a really far larger story. And that begins, really, in the 1980s as well, about the same time, when pain management is just beginning to be kind of a new discipline within medicine that you study, and a whole group of pain specialists began to form a collective consciousness and believe that we were not treating pain correctly--that there were these pills, opiate painkillers out there, and doctors all across the country were unwilling to use these, and that this was not a reasonable proposition. That these pills ought to be far more liberally used. And at first they made the argument, 'We need to use these for hospice care folks, people dying of cancer, whatnot, in order to improve their last months on earth. What does it matter if they are addicted to these pills? Who cares if they are addicted to these pills if they also live the last 3 months of their lives pain-free?' And that made a lot of sense. That was a very logical argument: that folks would die in utter pain because doctors were afraid they would be addicted. But these folks made a different argument. They, however, kept pushing; and that's why we're here today. They didn't stop with just hospice care. They began to make the argument that virtually all of these pills, 'We now know--science now knows--that, you know, 5000 years of experience with the opium poppy be damned, we now know that these pills are virtually non-addictive when used to treat pain.' And they began to push. They were joined in this after a while by certain pharmaceutical companies who were producing some of these pills, main one being Purdue Pharma, which makes the pill Oxycontin. And they took up the call of these guys. I had one doctor say, 'If it hadn't been for the pain specialists, the pharmaceutical companies would have had nobody to footnote, to use to say this is why we're doing these, we're producing these pills.' But had it not been for the pharmaceutical companies, these pain specialists would have been without a megaphone. And so the combination of those two together, particularly as the 1990s progressed, becomes very, very potent....

31:45
Russ Roberts: And as you point out, millions of people, who were in horrible pain weren't any more. So that was the good side. The bad side was the promised non-addictive aspect of oxycontin, which was the slow-release part--the idea that oxycontin was continuous was supposed to dampen the addictive part. Two things happened. One, people figured out a way to get around that by sucking off the coating that slowed the release; or hitting it with a hammer. So that was problem Number One. Problem Number Two is--I think; correct me if I'm wrong--that there were people who got addicted anyway, even though it was slow-release.

Sam Quinones: Yes. Right. They were following doctors' orders and they would still get addicted. And part of the problem, too, was that along with the idea that these pills were no longer addictive when used to treat pain, came the corollary which was then that there was no limit on dose. So, you began to see all across the country doctors prescribing enormous quantities of these pills for patients to take home with them after acute surgery, for acute pain after surgery. Now, this is pain that is probably going to last you, oh, no more than 3-5 days. If it lasts more than 5 days there's something else wrong. But, they would prescribe 30 days' worth of Vicodin or Oxycontin--these are common--Vicodin is another common opiate painkiller. And so what happened is--and then--and this was happening all across the country--an enormous new supply of opiates was created across the country; and a fair amount of that, a good amount of that leaked out into the black market. I believe this--when I was in Mexico, I believed that all drug stories were demand-driven, and that drug scourges were created by demand for those drugs. Now, when I did this book, this changed my mind, honestly: I came to think that really most drug problems begin because of excess supply--easy, cheap availability of a drug. And that's exactly what happened here. We have a new, a massive new supply of opiate painkillers from coast to coast, all across the country, because it's doctors who buy in to this idea. A couple of generations of doctors buy into the idea that they now need to very aggressively prescribe these things to treat our pain. And some are pushed or pressured. Legally you have to do this: If you don't treat pain, you can be sued. Some, it's insurance pressures; if we don't push people through our clinic we won't be able to reimburse enough to keep the lights on. But, whatever the case, doctors all across the country come to this idea that they need to do this. And that is what creates a massive and continuous new supply of opiate painkillers for the last 20 years, from coast to coast...."

That point about the 30-days supply for a few days of pain hits home. The prescription I mentioned above (when my husband broke his wrist) was for 15 days worth of painkiller. He was able to manage his pain with regular Tylenol for 3-4 days then he stopped taking that. At least in his case, 15 days of rx painkiller for a broken bone was total overkill.

Unknown

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JeromeBarry1

The number of Americans killed by gunfire and by automobiles combined is less than the number of Americans killed by legal narcotic prescription drugs. We're on track to solving the looming entitlement crisis without Congressional action simply by killing ourselves in such numbers as to lower our median lifespan.

Azdak

NorthCascades wrote: »

I feel like this idea of blame is wasted time and brainpower in most cases. The important question isn't whose fault is this, it's what can I do about it. Don't get distracted with the blame game, focus on what you can do to make things better in your item life and maybe beyond.

However, determining “what to do about it” starts with finding out “why it happened”. Corporate PR departments have done an excellent job of convincing many people that any questioning of their practices constitutes “playing the blame game”.

When it comes to food and obesity, the author of the open article cited by the OP has unfortunately decided to side with Robert Lustig, a high-fructose corn syrup demonizer. I found that part of the argument silly, as I always have.

However, in the case of the epidemic of opioid addiction, the lines to corporate involvement in the promotion of these drugs and of obscuring their risks are clear and irrefutable. To dismiss that by just saying “people should make better life choices” is being willfully obtuse IMO.