Dr. Wakeman’s Excellent Exposition on the Overdose Crisis
pa href=https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-singer hreflang=undJeffrey A. Singer/a
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pspanspanspana href=https://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/19383/sarah-wakemanSarah Wakeman, MD/a is the Medical Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Substance Use Disorder Project and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard University Medical School. She has anbsp;wealth of experience treating addiction and has published research on the a href=https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2760032comparative effectiveness/a of various treatment modalities for opioid use disorder./span/span/span/p
pspanspanspanDr. Wakeman recently gave an a href=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/11/mgh-expert-responds-to-100000-overdose-deaths/?utm_source=SilverpopMailingamp;utm_medium=emailamp;utm_campaign=Daily%20Gazette%2020211130%20(1)interview/a to the emHarvard Gazette/em in response to the a href=https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-overdose-deaths-fueled-by-fentanyl-hit-record-high-in-u-s-11637161200recent news/a that overdose deaths for the 12 months ending April 30, 2021 reached anbsp;stunning 100,000, 75 percent of which were opioid‐related, with 85 percent of opioid‐related overdoses involving illicit fentanyl./span/span/span/p
pspanspanspanHer exposition on the overdose crisis covered much more ground than Inbsp;was able to cover in my a href=https://www.cato.org/blog/unpublished-letter-editor-tragic-drug-overdose-reportletter to the editor/a of the emWall Street Journal/em. Among the many excellent points she made was the fact that drug prohibition is anbsp;major cause of overdose deaths:/span/span/span/p
blockquotepspanspanspanThe crisis and its worsening are related to anbsp;number of factors. One is the ongoing unpredictability and poisoning of the illicit drug supply. Increasingly, the drug supply is contaminated with fentanyl, and there is anbsp;lot of unpredictability in what people are using./span/span/span/p
pspanspanspanspanYou could compare it to alcohol, where we have anbsp;regulated supply. We of course still worry about alcohol use disorder and identify and treat it. But if you’re going to anbsp;restaurant or anbsp;bar or anbsp;store and you’re consuming alcohol, you know the alcohol level by volume content of the product you’re consuming. But imagine if you ordered anbsp;drink, and it could be 5nbsp;percent beer or it could be 80 proof liquor — that would be huge difference, and you would have no sense of how to regulate that./span/span/span/span/p
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pspanspanspanShe also criticizes the current policy that focuses on curtailing supply and reducing prescriptions, which is an abject failure:/span/span/span/p
blockquotepspanspanspanThis “let’s just make it harder for people to access it” strategy — anbsp;focus on opioid prescriptions, cracking down on the borders, increasing funding to the DEA, and increasing criminal prosecution for drug‐related charges — has been wholly ineffective. Yet that’s what we continue to hear about, even now in 2021, and that’s where our funding gets directed./span/span/span/p
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pspanspanspanI encourage readers to read the entire interview, which is available a href=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/11/mgh-expert-responds-to-100000-overdose-deaths/?utm_source=SilverpopMailingamp;utm_medium=emailamp;utm_campaign=Daily%20Gazette%2020211130%20(1)here/a./span/span/span/p