
How Congress and drug company lobbyists worked to neutralize the DEA - zspitzer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/
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glenra
The article's timeline counting "deaths from prescription opioid overdoses
since 2000" seems hugely misleading in that overdose deaths from prescription
use affects a teeny-tiny fraction of opioid prescriptions and that fraction
_hasn 't changed_. What _has_ changed is that (a) more people were able to get
prescriptions, (b) time has passed.

Given more prescriptions we should logically expect more deaths to result -
and this _doesn 't mean anything is wrong_ with prescription policy.

Given the passage of time, a raw count of "total deaths since 2000" should
tend to increase - this also _doesn 't mean anything is wrong_.

Overdose deaths are a bad thing, but people suffering from under-treated pain
because doctors are afraid to prescribe enough pain relief is _also_ a bad
thing. These two bad things are in tension with one another. A raw count of
"deaths since 2000" fails to tell us which bad thing is worse.

~~~
gwenzek
I agree that the numbers of the articles are poorly chosen. That said the
number of OD per year is increasing sharply in the US [1]

Thus article shed some lights on why the DEA seems to have more trubble than
before keeping in check the painkiller fabricants.

For me it shows that it's really hard to prevent collusion between regulators
and industries when it's a common practic to get hired at the people you used
to watch over.

1: [https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-
statistics/o...](https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-
statistics/overdose-death-rates)

~~~
glenra
The number of OD per year is almost meaningless without knowing the number of
_users_ per year. (Which also had been increasing sharply in the US.)

The last time I looked into this it seemed like _illegal heroin use_ was
relatively dangerous and legal prescription opiate use was quite safe and
remains so - the increase in the _raw number_ of prescription related ODs was
entirely caused by the same old tiny OD rate being applied to a larger number
of prescriptions.

You get big scary numbers by (a) combining deliberate suicides with accidental
ODs, (b) combining ODs from illegal use with ODs from legal use, (c) ignoring
background trends in usage rate. Properly separate those factors out and it
stops seeming likely that too-many-prescriptions is a problem.

~~~
gwenzek
I'm not sure what's you're point. For me the bad thing is that drug addiction
is increasing. OD is just a proxy for that, since it's something easier to
count that the number of addicts.

(b) seems legit to me. If you OD on legal use that means that the drug wasn't
give out responsibly or in a safe environment.

c) an increasing trend in drug consumption is not something I find reassuring
even if it may have a legit explanation like an increase in the number of
cancer (because that's also scary)

(a) is a more sensible topic but an increase in voluntary OD isn't a sign of
an healthy society.

------
oblib
Sure learned a lot reading this. No surprises really, but lots of
confirmation. Shared it with my FB friends.

