Opioid drugs, for some years, have been causing a real massacre. In fact, since 1999 both prescriptions and overdose deaths have quadrupled. The # 1 killer is Fentanyl, an opiate that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. The powerful pain reliever or analgesic belongs to the phenylpiperidine family, it would be responsible for almost 4,000 deaths that occurred in the last year alone, marking the sad record of a 600% increase compared to the deaths in 2014 from overdose of this kind. During 2015, the year of which the latest data are available, according to the US CDC there were as many as 33,000 deaths from overdose, of which half due to medical prescriptions. The deaths have in fact exceeded those from heroin overdose alone, just as they far exceeded those from road accidents. In the end,Opiate use and growing deaths
Not only the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) denounces the phenomenon but also a survey published in the New York Times and conducted nationally, which shows how there was a further increase of 19% in 2016. Trend which was unfortunately confirmed in 2017, despite the efforts to raise awareness among the population. This opiate massacre has therefore taken on the contours of a real epidemic, which has caused a health emergency. US President Donald Trump himself, on 10 August, called it a ‘national emergency’. “The opiate crisis is a national emergency, I say this officially – declared Trump – We will spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money to tackle this crisis”. After this statement,All addicted to Fentanyl and other opiates
Opioid addiction, or addiction, is common among all who use these drugs – both for the treatment of chronic pain and as a ‘drug’. According to the estimates of the health authorities, the army of people addicted to opiates in the US is made up of more than 2 million people. It should be noted that there is at least one in four patients who become addicted have not been treated for cancer, but only for use as a pain reliever. Not to mention that every day people come to the emergency room under the effect of abuse or incorrect use of analgesics or painkillers. Accomplices the prescriptions
To favor the use, and consequently the possible overdoses and related deaths, it seems there are precisely the medical prescriptions of opiates and painkillers in general. According to data collected by US health insurers over the past seven years, prescriptions for opioids have increased by 500%, a disturbing figure. Short-term prescriptions, but with high dosages, are most under accusation, which increase the risk of addiction by 40 times, compared to patients who are prescribed low doses for longer periods. Depression is also a problem
However, the abuse of opioid drugs seems to be only the tip of the Iceberg. In fact, in the United States drug abuse seems to be an increasingly serious problem and, as evidenced by the latest CDC report, antidepressant drugs have also registered a surge. The report states that 13% of Americans use them, with an increase of 65% compared to 1999. It is estimated that women are most affected by this negative phenomenon, who use psychiatric drugs in 16.5% of cases, compared to men who are around 9%.
Ultimately, with our eyes on the fight against drug trafficking, the sale of ‘traditional’ drugs, we risk losing sight of a worryingly growing phenomenon such as the abuse of opiate drugs – which furthermore feeds the market for so-called synthetic drugs. . What is Fentanyl
It is a very toxic synthetic opioid. Its potency has been compared to 50 times that of heroin and 100 times that of morphine. Precisely because of its high potency, it takes very little to risk an overdose and die – and this many people do not know. Just to give an example, to get the same dramatic effect with heroin you need 0.1 grams, while with Fentanyl it takes 0.002 grams.
It is also important to know that there are chemical compounds on the market that are similar to Fentanyl and, worse than ever, even more potent. One of these is Carfentanyl, which is even 10,000 times more potent than street heroin. 0.00002 grams are enough to obtain a lethal dose. It goes without saying that the increasing spread of these synthetic drugs constitutes a serious danger, precisely because in addition to being devastating for the body and mind, many do not know that very little is enough to die. The British authorities believe that the majority of the drugs present come from China. The reactions of the experts on the deaths from Fentanyl
Regarding the story of the numerous deaths from Fentanyl, the comment of some experts has been published on the Science Media Center website. One and that of prof. Ian Hamilton, Professor of Mental Health at the University of York: “It is clear that we have a problem with fentanyl, but what is not clear is the extent of the problem. Many people who use heroin will not be ‘chosen’ to use fentanyl, but this may sometimes be the only drug offered. This presents a particular risk to this group as they lack the knowledge or experience on how to titrate the dose, and recent mortality data show that some are paying with their lives. ‘
“The report of over 60 deaths in which fentanyl was implicated last year raises important alarm bells in the opioid treatment community,” said Prof. David Nutt, director of the Center for Neuropsychopharmacology, Imperial College London, and founder of DrugScience, Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs – Could be the prelude to a wave of deaths from this synthetic opioid as seen in the United States where most of the ‘street’ heroin and fentanyl boosted ».
To stem the phenomenon, continues Nutt, «First of all we need to understand what fentanyl is. It is a synthetic opioid that has the same pharmacology as morphine and heroin, but is chemically synthesized rather than extracted from the opium poppy. It is an old drug that was invented in the 1960s as an alternative to morphine in the treatment of pain during surgery, and more recently developed as a pain reliever that is given to people after operations via skin patches or infusions. The production of synthetic fentanyl is not subject to the difficulties of opium growth and is therefore more reliable. Attacks on poppy production as part of the ‘war on drugs’ have sometimes resulted in critically reducing supplies of morphine, so that fentanyl can easily substitute itself. It is this chemical synthesis of fentanyl that has led to its growth as an alternative to heroin. Fentanyl is significantly cheaper to obtain than heroin, and can be made with just a few steps from readily available chemicals. More worryingly, precursors that only require a one-step transformation into fentanyl are legally available. ‘
