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Thank you for the opportunity to share my opinion of a writer at writology.com/ and support on the Act Increasing Access to Overdose Reversal Drugs. My name is Sarah Johns, I am a Vice -President of II Connecticut Private Hospital. For a long time, I have worked in health care institutions and seen huge amount of terrifying cases. My initial mission was to relieve people’s sufferings by available and most effective means. However, I have seen many people abusing the recommendations of doctors and using the medical prescription in an inappropriate way. I am very concerned with the mortality increase due to overdose of opioid analgesics and do not want health institutions to be blamed for this issue. Unfortunately, opioids are the most efficient drugs against pain and suffering, though with possible severe side effects. Yes, we provide now drugs that might be dangerous for our patients during not strict conduct of the prescriptions. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the consequences and have to take a challenge to improve the situation for the better. Thus, we encourage you to vote for this Bill.
We strive for balance and minimizing the negative impacts on people who need opioids in their treatment and those who abuse it and become addicts. Medicine has already invented methadone and buprenorphine to decrease the amount of opioid drugs usage, but it is not enough in the crisis management. We need to take urgent decisions to not only prevent the reasons but also fight with consequences. In the risk groups, there are women and adolescent from the age of 12 as they frequently have different types of pain and disobey prescriptions as well as are able to share medicines with other people who can be not aware of correct doses and applications. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reports show that 5% of teenagers around 12-14 years use opioid pain relievers not according to medical intentions (as cited in American Society of Addiction Medicine . A dangerous fact is that amount of opioid pain relievers to pregnant women is around 14% . I can assume that despite education and pharmacy campaigns, this number of people will be increasing. In order to prevent lethal incidents, representatives of health care institutions should be able to get the necessary opioid antagonists urgently.
According to Medscape, in November 2015, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved intranasal naloxone after fast track designation and priority review . This initiative widens the frames of emergent opioid overdose treatment. As we are not always physically able to provide appropriate injections to those who abuse heroin or other opioids, it allows prescribing naloxone in a form of spray for home usage. The approach might be controversial and still needs a detailed investigation, but surveys proved many cases of opioid overdose or misuse happening at home in front of other people and require immediate actions. As we want to prevent amount of deaths, we would like to have permission to prescribe intranasal naloxone for home usage as well, surely with thorough instructions how to use it. We also encourage the Health Department to engage local health departments in this initiative as usage of opioids against chronic pains leads to overwhelming amount of overdose.
Based on the provided information and statistics below, it is obvious that the Act has to allow a licensed health care professional to prescribe opioid antagonists for victims of opioids misuse without criminal prosecution. Certainly, we should keep in mind that prescriber carries dual obligations to improve not only the current situation of a patient but also influence his or her awareness of appropriate usage scenarios for opioids. We should still focus on identification of risks of abuse and addiction for the patients rather than only react to the following outcomes. We have to educate the patients and prove them that opioid antagonists cannot be constant solutions and helpers if they do not want to use prescriptions correctly. For this reason, with all respect, I ask you to support this Act and help us to get to the balance between positive and negative effects.
Therefore, I am a great supporter of the permission to allow licensed specialists take measures in the current opioid crisis and be able react to the people’s violation of opioid regulations immediately. We still need to help those people and be not criminally persecuted afterwards. Hope you understand my clear position and thank you for attention.
If we speak about numbers, Results from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of National Findingsreport that 26-36 millions of people worldwide abuse opioids, around half a million are addicted to heroin in the U.S., and 2 million people have use disorders with prescribed opioid drugs. Moreover, the number of cases with opioid overdose or abuse of opioid analgesics rose in 2 times for the period from 2004 to 2008, while the number of deaths tripled to the amount of 16,000 in 2010. Thus, the scope and extent of the problem is growing while solutions are struggling with more and more obstacles.
On the other hand, the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) is constantly searching for alternatives of opioid prescriptions that mean awareness of crisis; it puts much financial support into research, explorations, experiments, new programs and initiatives, including non-medical strategies. For instance, there was a significant reduction of overdose cases in 1996-2010 due to naloxone. Chemical influence of the drug became a great supporter in the struggle with senseless deaths of patients. Naloxone and naltrexone are the most commercially available opioid antagonists and the FDA approved their relevant chemical structure. When they activate in a situation of extracting abusive opioid element, they impede opioid effects for which many people are craving. While not being in contact with opioids, they stay neutral. Thus, these drugs have less danger for being misused, abused, or become tolerant. This fact is very important to admit.