Washington is Poised to Make Kentucky's Opioid Crisis Worse
Drug overdoses are
skyrocketing in Kentucky. Staff at the St. Elizabeth hospital system in the
northern part of the state revive six opioid overdose victims every day.[1]
Twice as many Kentuckians are dying of overdoses as car accidents.[2]
Incredibly, politicians in
Washington are pushing a bill that would make the crisis even worse.
The proposed law,
introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders, would legalize the importation of
medicines from Canada.[3]
Proponents argue that the
bill would save patients money by allowing them to buy cheaper prescription
drugs from abroad. In reality, those "cheaper" medicines could come at
the price of hundreds of Kentuckians' lives. Many unscrupulous pharmacies will
jump at the chance to make a few bucks by sending painkillers to Americans
without requiring prescriptions. The bill would also seriously strain law
enforcement's ability to intercept illegal drugs.
Kentuckians' drug
addictions often begin with prescription pain pills. In the last three months
of 2016, Kentucky residents filled prescriptions for more than 17 million doses
of oxycodone and 36 million doses of hydrocodone.[4]
In just one year, Clay County residents filled enough prescriptions to provide
every resident -- including children -- with 150 doses of hydrocodone and
oxycodone.[5]
Many of these pills wind up
on the black market, fueling people's addictions. And when addicts can't find
or afford prescription painkillers, they often turn to heroin.
Heroin is dangerous enough
on its own -- but now, drug dealers are lacing heroin with fentanyl,[6] a deadly
synthetic opioid that's 100 times more potent than morphine.[7] Some
strains of fentanyl are so potent that Narcan, a lifesaving shot used to
resuscitate overdose victims, doesn't work.[8]
One-third of Kentucky
overdose deaths involve fentanyl.[9]
Legalizing prescription
drug importation would make it easier for dealers to obtain massive quantities
of illicit pain pills, heroin, and fentanyl.
Even though it's illegal, some
Americans already import prescription drugs. Many order from online Canadian
pharmacies, some of which don't even require prescriptions.[10]
Fortunately, authorities are sometimes able to intercept these shipments, which
often contain spoiled, counterfeit, or illegal substances.
If the bill passes, many Americans
would start ordering medicines from foreign pharmacies without realizing that
those drugs lack the gold standard of approval from the Food and Drug
Administration There'd be little stopping a drug dealer from buying
opioids in bulk to resell to vulnerable addicts. And the sheer volume of
shipments makes it unlikely that law enforcement would be able to stop this
trafficking.
Legalized importation
wouldn't just result in pain pills flooding into Kentucky -- it could also
allow drug dealers to bring in pure fentanyl. Canadian authorities have warned
that they don't inspect drugs that are imported from abroad, routed through
Canada, and then reshipped to America.[11]
The FDA also has no way to inspect or vet these imports.[12]
In other words,
fentanyl-producing labs in China could ship large quantities of the drug to
America via Canada. It'd be difficult for health authorities and law
enforcement to distinguish between packages containing legitimate prescriptions
and those containing deadly opioids.
Kentucky's cops and first responders
already are stretched thin dealing with overdoses. The last thing they need is
for federal lawmakers to make it even easier to obtain dangerous drugs. Senators
Sanders may sincerely believe importation would help lower drug costs. But the
price paid in human lives would be far too steep.
Dr.
Barry D. Denton
Retired
Police Sergeant – Louisville Metro Police Department
[3]https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/affordable-and-safe-prescription-drug-importation-act-introduced-to-help-lower-skyrocketing-cost-of-medicine
[4]
http://www.chfs.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/C32BB010-C430-4261-B285-2E308E5FB6F1/0/KASPERQuarterlyTrendReportQ42016.pdf
[5]
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/02/kentucky-opioids/515775/
[6]
http://odcp.ky.gov/Pages/The-Heroin-Epidemic.aspx
[7]
https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/fentanyl
[8]
http://www.richmondregister.com/kentucky/news/northeast-kentucky-responders-leery-of-new-drug-that-could-be/article_bcce99c3-1ca3-58a5-907e-5a60d4ff0669.html
[9]
http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article83770067.html
[10]
https://www.yourcanadianmeds.com/
[11]
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm143561.htm
[12]
https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Testimony/ucm113635.htm
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