The Opioid Crisis | Mark Thornton

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 18, 2018.
Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.

[@slhines7]

"People are generally completely uninformed about pain medications. Doctors are almost as completely uninformed. Pain medication is a blessing for the TEMPORARY relief of pain, or for people who are dying and suffering. All drugs were legal in America for almost 150 years, until the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1913. There was not even an age limit! Heroin, morphine, opium, cocaine, amphetamine, hashish, and marijuana were inexpensive, over the counter drugs. Only about 3% of Americans had a dependence problem. They were marginalized people, not criminals. There was simply no reason whatsoever to pass this act. All drugs should be legal for adults. Period. That’s right- all drugs for all adults. Anyone who commits a crime while under the influence of any drug (including alcohol) should get doubled penalties. People with drug problems are medical patients, not criminals. This would put an end to drug cartels, most organized crime, most gangs, and would empty the prisons overnight. One third of the courts would close down, and one third of the lawyers would be out of work as well. Police would be free to arrest real criminals. It would also take all the profit, false allure, and fake glamour out of illegal forbidden drugs. Drug dependence is Boring with a capital B. " - Roger Mason

[@fredi1356]

Shivering facts that should make every one of us think deep for the future society where our kids will have to deal with... Superb speech. Thank you for trying to shake us all - even if we're safe of any close to family drugs problem.

[@Digiphex]

The only "crisis" is who pays for the pills. If people paid a reasonable price per pill from their labor the crisis would disappear.

[@ssm59]

This is a two edge sword. Now it is very difficult to get patients the post surgical pain medications they need. Regional variation goes back a long ways. The mid south and south east have always had much higher rates of narcotic prescriptions compared to the north and west.

[@ssm59]

Daniel Bjorndahl I face this daily. While I am no big fan of narcotics they do play a needed role in post surgical pain management. Unfortunately Dr. Thornton did not bring up the medical reason for liberalizing pain medications to begin with. Evidence is clear that failure to manage pain begets more pain. We were generating our chronic pain patients consequently driving them to seeking drugs on the black market. When this became clear in the 90s steps were taken to liberalize narcotic management in hopes of avoiding future addiction to street drugs. Unfortunately like most decisions made by committees, the floodgates opened but no provision was made to deal with problems that might arise from this policy change. Certainly big Pharma have no problem filling its role identifying pain management as a profit center. By the early 2000’s it was common to see patients that had 30 to 90 days of opioids prescribed for problems that certainly did not need this level of pain management. Drug seekers learned very quickly that visits to a busy emergency room on Friday night provided them ample supply of narcotics for their own personal use as well as for selling on the street. Addiction rates spiked and the black market kicked into high gear supplying the panoply of drugs we see today. Now we have to shut this down. However, letting patients suffer will just drive us back to where we were 30 years ago, and so the cycle will start again. We have to get used to the fact there are no good options here, only choices. Levitt and Dubner state that for most, addiction is a self correcting problem consequently there is little risk to legalization. That’s great if you only care about averages. However it will be still be devastating for many and it is individuals we care for, not averages.

[@johnsenvnts]

ending the "War on Drugs" would do a lot to end the refugee crisis as well (I just read this somewhere...maybe on Mises Institute e-mail articles?)

[@PreciousBoxer]

Ending the silent War on Drugs would do a lot to end opioid overdose. Mark Thornton not only knows this fact, but chooses to ignore it for his own financial well-being.

[@griftyvegas6618]

I had surgery in 2000s, I was prescribed Ibuprofen cause apparently I did not feel pain, but someone with a small sprain got oxy...thank you for that.

[@slhines7]

I personally have been trying to get my 78 year old Mother's plethora of Doctors to prescribe her Zohydro, which is supposed to be Acetametaphin free with ZERO luck. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get Zohydro, which is less harmful and a better optioin from what I have researched.

[@ngenzokwamiinduna4392]

Who does opioids?

[@PreciousBoxer]

People coerced by prohibition. Mark Thornton wrote a book called The Economics of Prohibition which everyone should read before listening to him now. Re-legalization detours opioid usage. Opioid overdose is a colorful way of saying suicide. Notice how there's zero differentiation between deliberate and accidental overdose?

[@leealderman]

"Over prescribing" is nonsense. Pain was still being *under-treated* overall when anti-opioid advocacy groups (cults) began lobbying to make pain relief availably only to an elite. Sure, legal medication was the drug of choice for a while, and pill mills needed to be closed. But what's happening today is ridiculous. Suicides were at a 30-year high in 2016, and a lot of chronic pain patients - people who were already extorted, forced to undergo drug testing and invasive procedures, monitored like Jews during the Holocaust in databases of innocent people, and verbally abused at the pharmacy - have been forcibly tapered or cut off entirely. Opioids have never been the first line of treatment for long term pain relief. The initiating substance matters very little. Addiction is not *caused* by a substance, but by a person's unique genes and local environment. Overdoses are increasing for the same reason Prince and Tom Petty died, and it's only *inversely* affected by the new "battle" against legal drug manufacturers. The new drug war against and further limitation of legal medication is killing more people. ILLICIT drugs (heroin/cocaine/fake pills) are being laced with fentanyl analogues (not legal fentanyl), so the potency is often 40/50 times stronger than expected. What does the government do? Instead of making access to reliably potent medication easier, it continues fear mongering, spreading false statistics and memes, and further *limiting* access - the OPPOSITE of what's needed to save lives.

[@nowaout8014]

i fault the doctors they are taught what these pills do in med school

[@Hakirokone]

the fault lies deeper. Western society has become extreme in its secular materialism and abandoned the idea of an elite class called the nobility which morally/ethically led the rest of society by example -- honor & social good standing mean nothing now.

[@grraadd]

10% gets addicted - after few hundred years of overdosing junkies we should see a drop of that figure ;-)

[@PreciousBoxer]

Addiction is a myth. What's more important than knowing something someone else told you was true, is questioning that alleged fact of life. It's called using your head. A higher education helps.