The opioid crisis

It’s kind of nice to see that news report actually had an effect. It actually got people in the media talking about it across the board, instead of it just staying in one newspaper/news program.

This is the actual report by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes.

Yeah, I took a second look and edited to change “statistically significant” to “could be statistically significant” after I had initially posted. More study/data is definitely needed, as it’s tough to determine the leveling off and/or decline.

As to a study that shows no change, there are folks (especially in the Federal Gov’t who want MJ to remain classified as a schedule 1 drug) who would probably want that.

Tom Marino is a douchebag. I’ve met him.

Are you in his District? That’s a loopy mapped out mess he is representing. PA seriously needs to be examined for gerrymandering. Where I live is in the 16th District which is basically the City of Reading and Lancaster County. The rest of Berks is in the 6th, 7th or 15th. It’s ridiculous and an obvious delination to put votes in specific places to counter others. I don’t understand why our Districts aren’t represented by counties or a combination of one to three of them, etc.

Because our districts were gerrymandered.

Check out the 7th… it’s barely contiguous at all. Hell, compared to some of those down near philly, and the 12th out near pittsburgh, the 10th looks totally reasonable.

Chinese Fentanyl producers (and shippers to US) indicted (but not extradited):

Two men in China have been charged by American federal prosecutors as being the kingpins of a vast international conspiracy to manufacture and sell fentanyl, a powerful opioid, via unnamed Dark Web sites…

…They use multiple identities to disguise their activities and their shipments and to obscure the trail of profits going back to China. They take advantage of the fact that the fentanyl molecule can be altered in numerous ways to create a fentanyl analogue that is not listed as illegal under US and Chinese law. When regulators are able to identify the new fentanyl and make it illegal, the distributors quickly switch to a new, unlisted fentanyl analogue.

Yup, it is surprising how accommodating everyone has been, just hand waving away any responsibility the people who allowed this bill had in the matter.

It seems mind blowing that people wouldn’t see this, think about how much money big pharma has been bribing our politicians with and then connection the dots. Clinton asked sanders what decision she had made that was affected by her taking money. Not speaking about her but as a general comment, if ever there was a more obvious example of corruption, here it is.

The 60 minutes and associated transcript is here.

EVERYONE is complicit. Democrats, Republicans and Obama. Pointing a finger at the bill’s author is fine, but when EVERYONE signs onto it, it’s EVERYONE’s fault.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought the legislation to the floor and it passed the Senate through unanimous consent with no objections and no recorded votes.

It passed the House the same way, with members of Congress chatting away on the floor.

A week later, with no objections from Congress or the DEA, President Barack Obama signed it into law without ceremony or the usual bill signing photo-op. Marino issued a press release the next day claiming credit for the legislation.

I guess the $102 million spent by pharma on lobbying from '14-'16 turned out to be a worthy investment.
Not to mention the money they spent hiring former DEA agents and lawyers - one of whom, Linden Barber, now an executive at Cardinal Health (!) - wrote the freaking thing.

Here’s a list of co-sponsors and statements made to the Washington Post. (Not even sure what Whitehouse’s statement is trying to say.)

Rep.Tom Marino Pa. R Declined request.

Rep. Judy Chu Calif. D “When I cosponsored the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, it was my understanding that the DEA was closely involved in advising on drafting language that would not impact their mission.”

Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis Fla. R “My hope was that this legislation would eradicate the scourge of opioid addiction while allowing seniors, Veterans and other people with significant pain to get the relief they need with a legitimate prescription,” Bilirakis said in a statement.

Rep. Douglas A. Collins Ga. R Did not respond.
Rep. Ryan A. Costello Pa. R Did not respond.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn Tenn. R Did not respond.

Rep. Peter Welch Vt. D “I supported Rep. Marino’s bill because it clarified the rules of the road for distribution companies seeking to comply with agency directives and freed up agency resources to go after bad actors in the system. If the intent of the law is not being fulfilled, then Congress should conduct oversight hearings and make changes that address concerns raised by the DEA,” Welch said in a statement.

Sen. Orrin Hatch Utah R Hatch’s spokesman, Matt Whitlock, said the DEA, which had undergone a leadership change, did not oppose the bill in the end. “We worked collaboratively with DEA and DOJ . . . and they contributed significantly to the language of the bill,” Whitlock wrote in an email. “DEA had plenty of opportunities to stop the bill and they did not do so.”

Sen. Marco Rubio Fla. R Did not respond.
Sen. David Vitter La. R Did not respond. No longer in Senate.
Sen. Bill Cassidy La. R Did not respond.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse R.I. D A spokesman for Whitehouse said the DEA could have expressed its opposition at any time. “The fact that it passed the entire Senate without hearing any sort of communication that would have triggered concern of at least one senator doesn’t really pass the smell test,” the spokesman said.

Does no one live in the Northern part of PA? Is that why those districts are so large?

At least the 4th does look crazy, although I am not a fan of Tom Platts and splitting up Harrisburg is likely a cause of annoyance to Democrats.

Ya, north central PA is pretty sparsely populated. It’s mainly woods and game-land.
It’s one of the nice things about living out here, actually. If you like hiking, camping, rock-climbing, biking, etc., it’s got some beautiful land.

Sure, it sounds lovely, but then you remember that people call soda pop and then you realize why no one wants to live there

It’s just TENS matey. Anyone who’s gone to a physio knows about it. It’s like someone excitedly discovering the wheel.

You just said something a bit silly about thousands of dollars and now we’re coming through PubMed

Why bother? Why would anyone feel strongly over bloody TENS? lol

TENS is just one of these physio level modalities like dry needling, cupping etc etc. They provide a bit of temporary relief for some.

End of story, I guess. Nothing to argue over except stubbornness

If you want to keep on reading lit, look to meaningful assessments like the ODI. The authors of your paper you randomly googled acknowledge that data is absent, but no ones going to bother getting it because it’d be a freakin waste of time!

Nah, it’s soda here.

It’s a critical review of the current state of research on the topic. It’s presented here because it offers refernces to a large number of other specific papers on the topic.

Perhaps you didn’t actually read it, but the suggestion that “the data is absent” , or that no one is conducting any studies, is clearly wrong given that they cite numerous actual scientific studies conducted.

I mean, you are of course under no obligation to bother reviewing any of the evidence presented, but what you are stating here is objectively false on its face.

The idea that it’s merely the same kind of things as cupping is, again, at odds with numerous studies which have shown an analgesic effect statistically higher than placebo, whereas I do not believe that there is any significant evidence of such impacts from naturalistic stuff like cupping.
(Perhaps cupping offers impacts beyond placebo levels, and I am merely unaware of such findings)

I think cupping has benefits just from bringing blood to the site of the inflammation, but I’m talking out of my butt a little bit because I don’t feel like re-reviewing lit at the moment.

(Disclaimer: actual medicine is still better, natch)

From the abstract, assuming you made it that far.

Additional research is necessary to determine if TENS has effects specific to mechanical stimuli and/or beyond reduction of pain and will improve activity levels, function and quality of life.

Key in activity levels, function —> assessed through a disability index.

What on earth do you expect from such an extremely broad meta-analysis which has nothing to regress? The authors state it fairly.

Oh wait, you’ve never seen this paper before and you’re just upset because you said something dumb.

I mean, I don’t care either way. I’ve got nothing against TENS. It is what it is. It’s just bloody TENS, Timex!

But you really need to review your understanding of scientific method, and I say that fairly. On what basis do you disprove the analgesic effects of cupping? , That’s just basic stuff mate, I reckon you’re smarter than that.

Cupping probably works a treat for a lot musculoskeletal problems.

Btw I wonder how the heck they did TENS placebo? You’re meant to feel paresthesia. Unless they’re new fangled high frequency thingoes, or they just figured the patients were too dumb to know better lol

So are you guys arguing for the sake of arguing?

TO THE BITTER END