Roy Exum
In the state of Tennessee – right now – our doctors prescribe so much hydrocodone that every person over the age of 12 who currently lives in the state could take 51 pills in a year. Oxycodone? 17. Zanax? 21. We are a state of 6.6 million people and more opioids are prescribed in Tennessee alone than in most of the world’s largest countries.
That is exactly why Tennessee had 1,451 deaths due to opioid overdose in 2015, up from 1,263 in 2014, and we are on track to have many more this year. Earlier this week I had a chance to sit with Tommy Farmer, who heads the Tennessee Dangerous Drugs Task Force for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and with Dr. Mitch Mutter, a medical director for the state. Both confirmed we are in the middle of what is indeed a perilous epidemic of prescribed narcotics.
Not long ago Tommy was urged by Winchester officials to come speak. In a town of about 8,500 people, over 500 showed up because their children are dying, because smart people are horribly addicted to painkillers, and because we – as a society – ignore the fact we have a rampant serial killer in our midst. The story is so horrifying it is surreal and Tennessee is the second-worst state in the country, right behind Alabama in a close race.
Remember when, earlier this year, there was a panic over the Zita virus which is deadly for unborn infants but not fatal to almost all adults. Congress allocated a quick $222 million and has $1.1 billion (with a ‘b’) on the way. Thus far there have been 182 Zita cases in the United States with another 4,261 travel-associated cases.
President Obama also wants an identical $1.1 billion (with a ‘b’) to combat opioid addition, where an average of one overdose death from opioids occurs every 2½ minutes. The reason no one is screaming murder is because we all know hydrocodone and a Fentanyl patch are wonderful tools to control pain. If a good and devout doctor sees a person in pain, narcotics work. Sadly, the same narcotics are not much good for mental anguish, as convenient masks for other problems, and definitely not a recreation play toy.
“We’ve got to educate the public we have overdoses every day and prescription abuse/OD is more frequent that all other illicit drugs combined,” said Dr. Mutter, a prominent cardiologist in Chattanooga before he joined Governor Haslam’s efforts in Nashville. “We have people who say, ‘It’s okay, my doctor gave me a prescription,’ but when they continue to take them – without pain but because they like to get high or don’t want to face a problem -- that’s not okay. They keep pointing to the prescription as if to say, ‘It’s okay’ and the next thing you know that person is hooked.”
Under Mutter and Farmer’s watch, a statewide data base now keeps up with prescriptions and it has greatly reduced ‘doctor-shopping,’ where a single patient goes to numerous doctors seeking the same narcotics, and the data base also shows which doctors are over-prescribing narcotics when a different drug may be better suited.
“I know the cutest girl you’ve ever seen who smoked marijuana at age 12 and was crushing hydrocodone so she could snort it within 18 months later,” said Farmer, who got his start in law enforcement as a deputy for Sheriff Jim Hammond. “Today she helps us tell the truth about how horrible this problem has become.”
What is really scary is how America got this bad. The United Nations through the World Health Organization tracks opioid use by estimating the world’s requirements for narcotic drugs. For example, in a given year India (9th) uses 10 kilograms, China (7th) uses 20 kilos, Canada (3rd) uses 115.5 kilos and the United Kingdom (2nd) uses 200 kilos.
Does your “disbelief needle” spin to when you learn the United States of America uses 79,700 kilograms of licensed narcotics, which is 99.3 percent of the world’s usage. Can you believe this! Actually, the United States manufactures 99.9 percent of all the hydrocodone in the world. And in Tennessee we write a total of 1.3 prescriptions for every single person alive in the state.
Farmer says that there have been three drugs epidemics in American’s history. In the Civil War there was “Soldier’s Disease” (morphine addiction), then in the ‘60s and ’70 narcotics jumped as marijuana became popular (“They wanted a bigger ‘high.’”) but due to a myriad of factors opioid overdose is worse today than it has ever been in America.
Don’t worry, other drugs are not being left out. Heroin use in Tennessee is at an all-time high, cocaine is making a record comeback and the drug lords in Mexico are sending liquid ‘meth’ as fast as they can make it. You don’t hear much about “cooking meth” anymore because a vial of liquid is easier to use and easier to get.
In 2014 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration found 1.9 million Americans were addicted to prescription drugs and another 586,000 were addicted to heroin. That is one-quarter of a million people two years ago so there are clearly more afflicted now because this monster is gaining speed every year.
“Under Governor Haslam we have made great strides but the problem has gotten so big it hardly shows,” said Farmer. “Dr. Mutter gives about 3 or 4 talks a week and people are still surprised to hear the numbers. The biggest addiction group in the state is opioids – it passed alcohol several years ago – but if we tried to treat those who live below the poverty level and are addicted to narcotics, you are looking at over $30 million.”
Just in the last ten years, there has been a ten-fold increase in Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (addicted newborns from an addicted mother). By the time a NAS baby can leave the hospital, the additional cost will be well over $50,000. What opioids cost our state is insane and there is a workable theory that there are currently over 1 million in the state who are non-medical opioid users; they get them from a family member or a friend.
Do you see what this stuff is doing to us? It is time for communities to do what the people in Winchester just did – get it out in the open, educate one another, and try to help those who are already in the grip of the highly-addictive narcotics. For somebody in the United States, in 2½ minutes it will be too late.
royexum@aol.com