story of the opioid epidemic begins with good intentions. In the 1980s, many prominent doctors began to argue that the medical community was doing too little to treat chronic pain, and that the psychological and emotional impact of that suffering was causing damage far beyond the identifiable injuries. Physicians were encouraged to believe their patients when they complained about pain, and to take aggressive steps to alleviate those symptoms.
At the same time, the Reagan administration was removing regulations that barred pharmaceutical companies from advertising directly to consumers. Massive companies like Purdue, Johnson & Johnson, and Mylan began to invest heavily in the production of pain pills. They also found ways to frame powerful opioids as a safe treatment for chronic pain. Purdue, in pushing oxycontin, told doctors, patients, and regulators that the medicine posed a lower risk of addiction and abuse than many of the common options already on the market.
The result was a flood of highly potent pain pills into the American bloodstream. Between 1999 and 2014, sales of opioid painkillers increased more than four fold. Not surprisingly, the rate of overdose deaths also quadrupled. Between 2007 and 2012, over 780 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone were shipped to West Virginia alone. That’s 433 pills for every person in the state — higher if you don’t count children. The drug companies reaped tens of billions in profit.
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