HLTHAGE 2L03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Opioid Use Disorder, Methadone, Benzodiazepine
7 Dec 2018
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Document Summary
The dichotomy between narratives of pharmaceuticals and narcotics: one fixes, one destroys. By school age, children recognize some drugs as good (used by good people ), and others bad (used by bad people ) When using the good drugs in a bad way, users may justify it on the basis that it"s a medicine it can"t be that bad . Since the 1990s, rx addiction has eclipsed narcotics in terms of social harms and rates: opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants. Diversion: from the factory, the md"s office, the pharmacy, the patient, doctor shoppers , script docs , internet sales, rx fraud and forgery. Some may purchase from dealers but most common suppliers are family, friends, and physicians. Addiction not simply tied to bad users but the range of actors from organized crime to medical system. Deaths from rx opioids surpass heroin and cocaine combined.
