State Spends $10M Last Year on Opiate Addicts Rx

One of the side benefits was a drug that was easily concealed and deliverd to correctional facilities that spent more resources dealing w/ this contraband drug of choice !

10 million a year?

Gee, all I do is go to a couple of AA meeting every week and throw a buck in the basket.

Obviously Tom C you found the way to do it , the you is the difference. I congratulate you.

With 10 mil sitting at the pump I bet the Maine pharmacies are not too eager to sell that stuff real cheap.

I do think addicts should be treated rather than incarcerated for no more then selling enough to be able to buy their own but I wonder how good this particular treatement program is.

My wife had a bad back from her CNA work and ended up addicted to methadone for several years. She, like many pain patients today, was mistreated for what her problem was, and addiction was the end result, as it is for many Mainers. Treating Chronic long term pain, with methods better reserved for acute pain, is a terrible mistake that many doctors make. Doctors, hospitals and pharmacies all make money with the status quo so it continues to this day. It pretty near got her for good but thanks to a particular family doctor who would not give up, a doctor at Acadia hospital that said the right thing at the right time, and strong family support, she was able to completely walk away from it after being hooked real good. The withdrawl was absolutely terrible but the end result was priceless.

The family doctors that we have visited since all are amazed, and tell her how lucky she is to be alive today, and they ask how she ever did it. She is stubborn as a jackass, and wanted to show the doctors she COULD quit, and it saved her life.

We know what addiction is like as we, as a family, lived with it for several years. We sure don't have all the answers but believe turning addicts into criminals, simply because a lot of us have no sympathy for druggies, is not the answer. While at Acadia for a couple of days, my wife talked with several IV heroin addicts and to the last man, they all regretted getting on it to start with. I have seen the withdrawl more times than I ever wanted to and it is the most difficult thing I ever dealt with in my life........and I quit smoking and drinking, both, before they killed me. But it was nothing compared to what she endured in order to quit.

WC

The biggest problem with these methadone clinics is that pretty much NO effort is being made to help the users kick the habbit.

I have personal knowledge through a family member that got suckered into the program and now is trying to get off, and he is telling me that the so called "counselors" that he talks with are only concerned about keeping him on it..
When he asks how much longer he will be on the junk, all they seem to say is "what's the problem, isn't it working for you?"

Someone really needs to do some serious oversight study about this program.

I have personal knowledge through a family member that got suckered into the program and now is trying to get off, and he is telling me that the so called "counselors" that he talks with are only concerned about keeping him on it.. When he asks how much longer he will be on the junk, all they seem to say is "what's the problem, isn't it working for you?"

My ex brother in law said the same thing when they put him on it. He took himself off because it was so bad, and said he will never go back to it for any reason. The whole impetus was to keep him on it, and they kept telling him to 'give it time'.

The biggest problem with these methadone clinics is that pretty much NO effort is being made to help the users kick the habit.

This is because it's primarily (there is only ONE non-profit in Maine) a for-profit business, so there is zero incentive to get people off it. If less people are taking methadone and suboxone, they make less money. Make no mistake, businesses in this area are in it to make money, not something noble like to help people. The town of Warren learned this the hard way in their recent lawsuit with CRC.

Since these people are protected by the American's with Disability Act, they are 'untouchable' with regards to regulation. I am willing to bet a lawsuit will be filed against the state if they try and limit the 'treatment', even though that is exactly what needs to happen.

The town of Warren is still not done with the CRC group either. I don't have the direct source, but it was in the villagesoup.com recently that they are looking for approval of two other sites in Warren. I've heard from a relative that lives in Warren that these places are out on Route 1, but are really not suitable because of adjacent residential properties. But the CRC is still trying and wants to get certain land ordinances waived, or so it is rumored. The fact that this company is pushing so hard to get into Warren makes me wonder just how much clientele they estimate is there. And of course, you also have to wonder because of the proximity to the prison. Bad news all the way around. I really don't understand trading one addiction for another and why there is not more regulation in helping these people taper off and get totally clean.
If feel very bad for people like your wife, WC, because that was not self-induced, and she definitely has the right to be proud of getting away from the stuff. She is very lucky to have had the support she had and the determination to do it.

Agreed, Listen.

Anyone have a past story on the CRC issues, for our information?

As for the suboxone issues -- isn't it amazing, that the longer the new administration has a chance to explore the murky state funding cesspool, the more of these sordid albatrosses float to the surface?

Naran: Yes, we have looked into stories about CRC. They are being sued in several wrongful death suits. We posted some articles here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/No-Methadone-In-Warren/103446216393720
You'll have to scroll down to September 8th.

Thank you kindly, Natybug.

My wife and I were discussing this a couple of days back and she remembers the doctor at Acadia Hospital telliing her that the withdrawl when trying to get off the synthetic narcotics is worse than the withdrawl from heroin or other narcotics that are made naturally.

The thing that we do not want to forget, is as Jeepn alluded to, the manufacture and sale of these meds is a very profitable business worth many millions of dollars across the whole USA. Pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospital and other healthcare facilities have a vast highway to wealth by using these drugs. They have every incentive to get people addicted to them, in order to keep the cash flow coming and, with few exceptions, have little reason to really help addicts to understand their situation and try to do something about it.

Suboxone is the trade name for Buprenorphine. .........."Buprenorphine" is a thebaine derivative with powerful analgesia approximately 20-40x more potent than morphine".........Wikipedia entry

This is pretty scary stuff, but it all is in the end. The Widipedia article above talks a lot about use of this as a remedy for "chronic pain" which several doctors, including the two who helped us the most, is the mistake that is made by the medical community, and ends up with millions of people addicted to legally prescirbed narcotics. I have heard them describe it like this: "Narcotics are appropriate for prescription for acute pain, as after surgery or a car wreck or something similar. SHORT TERM USE! Narcotics are totally inappropriate for LONGTERM use for pain!" As in bad backs, knees, and so on, and todays crowd is very good at getting doctors to prescribe em for just that. Long term use leads directly to addiction! No wonder we have such a problem.

The truth about the addiction isthis: There is no such thing as a "maintenance dose". This being stated as the dosage a person takes to support his addiction so he can live a relatively normal life. The truth is that there is no stability. We were told that the human brain can signal pain receptors to go into high gear to sense real pain, and demand the patient take more narcotics over time. What a patient is taking today for narcotic meds, will not be enough by next year. The reality is that evey addict always needs more over time and that is something the body naturally does once on this stuff.

Our family doctor, who did so much to help her, told me one day that what she took in a day would kill both him and me, and a few other people also. The body can stand, and will demand, a vast amount of narcotics over time and any kind of normal life will be impossilb to live. She would fall asleep smoking, and driving the car, all very frightening moments for the rest of us, and eventually her also, as thinking of that helped her find the will to quit.

Very little is said about how willing the medical community as a whole is to have people in this situation, to keep profits rolling in. And that is sad as this mindset has contributed to the addiction of thousands of people. 10 million in Maine, how much in the entire nation?

Back around 2000 Maine officials were upset over all the publicity that illegal use of legally prescribed drugs was getting and DHHS vowed that they would set up systems to prevent abuse as much as possible. It became harder to refill precrips for a time as all kinds of new measures were implemented. Computer cross referencing was supposed to stop doctor shopping.

Ten years later it seems like nothing has changed. As more and more "treatment" centers want to be opened, one can easily see the flow of money and that will prevent any real change in the way things are done, and that is too bad as the problems are huge.

Why doesn't anyone want to investigate overprescribing of these meds?

WC

The reason methadone and suboxone are so hard to kick is the very reason they work as "maintenance" drugs.
The halflife (the amount of time it takes for the body to eliminate half of the amount taken) is much longer than most of the drugs that are being replaced, so that the effects tend to last longer, making the cravings less intense.

The addicts generally say that it takes 3-5 days to come off herion, and 2-4 weeks for methadone.

An interesting post that I came across during one of my "research" sessions about the methadne problem;

http://www.steadyhealth.com/how_long_does_methadone_stay_in_the_body___W...

There are literally dozens of these forums out there with these addicts telling their stories and comparing notes.

I don't see a lot of good in the future of this country if we don't take care of the drug problem soon.