Read more about the article Tennessee’s Absolute Medical Care (AMC) Owner Convicted of Distributing Opioids

Tennessee’s Absolute Medical Care (AMC) Owner Convicted of Distributing Opioids

The owner of a treatment center that was a front for drug dealing in Tennessee has now been formally convicted of crimes related to the distribution of opioids. The doctor was prescribing opioids like Oxycontin to people who may have been seeking help for their addiction. Absolute Medical Care (AMC), owned by 54-year-old Hau T. La, MD, of Brentwood, was caught up in a scandal over the revelations in 2021. Now, he’s been convicted for the crimes, alongside many of his employees.

The trial revealed that while advertising addiction recovery services, Mr. La also prescribed highly addictive opioids to his clients. Many of them had come to him for help with beating their substance use disorder. Instead, they were manipulated and plied into silence with drugs while they paid in cash. Mr. La did not accept insurance.

Profiting Off The

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Read more about the article Fake Oxycontin is Killing People

Fake Oxycontin is Killing People

Fake Oxycontin is a big trend on the streets in America, and investigators in Minnesota say they’re the cause of fatal overdoses. Usually, they’re laced with fentanyl, which can be fifty to a hundred times as potent than morphine.

Fake But Deadly

In St. Cloud, Minnesota, a recent overdose came from fentanyl marketed on the street as Oxycontin. Some fentanyl has also been passed off to be Oxycodone or Percocet. It’s a nationwide trend in recent months, as drug traffic has stalled at the border during a national pandemic.

The pills are made to look like the real pill, although some have a blueish tint to them. One side of the tablet is blue with the “M” stamped on one side and “30” stamped on the other.

Last month, a Sacramento resident was caught with over 1,000 pills of what …

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Read more about the article Does the Dental Industry Has an Opioid Script Problem?

Does the Dental Industry Has an Opioid Script Problem?

Recent studies show that the dental industry in America may be an essential link in the addiction crisis, with nearly half of dental prescriptions exceeding prescription guidelines for acute pain management.

The research, published today in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, covered a five-year study period of dental prescriptions.

What Do the Numbers Say?

Dentists are a vital component in addiction prevention that has often been overlooked in research studies. However, the dental industry is responsible for 10% of all opioid prescriptions in the United States. Yet, in three out of ten prescriptions, dentists prescribed a more powerful opioid than necessary following painful procedures. And the prescriptions were typically for longer than three days, which is the current opioid prescription guideline for acute surgery pain.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data on nearly 550,000 dental visits by …

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Read more about the article FDA Studies On Opioid Education Were Flawed

FDA Studies On Opioid Education Were Flawed

Studies on doctor education in the opioid epidemic were flawed, and hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. And although the FDA has lobbied heavy criticism and the pharmaceutical industry has paid fines, they are not without blame. They took years to investigate the makers and distributors of Oxycontin. Instead of protecting consumers, the federal agency instead left its own bumbling paper trail for opioid education oversight, according to a New York Times report.

The FDA, documents reveal, did little to stop overprescribing and, in fact, created a study that failed to be accurate by design, according to Caleb Alexander, the senior author of the study. “It’s unclear why the FDA didn’t insist upon a more scientifically rigorous evaluation of this safety program.” This means that it’s unclear if any studies were correct.

What Studies Were Done on the Safety

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Read more about the article Oxycontin Makers Sink Claws Into China

Oxycontin Makers Sink Claws Into China

A report has come out detailing the marketing moves that Purdue Pharma, the drugmaker responsible for Oxycontin and other variations of opioid, has moved on to China. Of course, it’s no big secret that companies like food and pharmaceutical makers take their wares overseas to new markets.

What’s unusual about Purdue’s business moves is that the behavior that cost billions of dollars in US lawsuits is now being deployed in China.

Boosting Sales and Breaking Laws in China

Stat News claims that when sales began to crash due to the opioid crisis, the Sacklers and their subsidiaries set their eyes on the global market. In China, Purdue’s international pharma dealer, Mundipharma, pushed for profits over ethics without fail. While the profit scheme unraveled very publicly in the US courts, quietly, Purdue Pharma began marketing elsewhere.

Current and former employees told …

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Read more about the article House Will Vote to Potentially Ban Kratom, Synthetics

House Will Vote to Potentially Ban Kratom, Synthetics

The House of Representatives faces nearly two dozen votes on new drug-related bills in an effort to stem the addiction epidemic. Among those bills is H.R. 2851, The Stop Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues (SITSA) Act, a bill aimed at Kratom and other synthetic drug imports, even those that have not been created yet.

The bill, if passed and made into law, will significantly expand the powers of the Department of Justice, under the guise of unilaterally prohibiting any synthetic drugs the DOJ decides is chemically similar to currently banned drugs. People who import such drugs would face similar penalties to people who import substances that are alreadu banned.

While the measure may have been proposed with good intentions, critics say that if passed, a new era will be entered in the War on Drugs, and it may cause …

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Read more about the article Making Oxycontin Harder to Abuse Led to Heroin OD’s

Making Oxycontin Harder to Abuse Led to Heroin OD’s

Have you ever wondered how heroin became such a prominent drug in the past few years? In 2010, Purdue Pharma, the makers of Oxycontin, were under a lot of pressure from various stakeholders. The popular drug, used for anything from pain for an acute injury to long-term chronic pain like cancer, had proven more addictive than they anticipated. By the 2000’s, it was clear that something had gone awry. People were crushing pills and snorting or shooting them up. So they decided to make Oxycontin more difficult to abuse by reformulating the medicine. By making the pills difficult to crush and more extended-release, people wouldn’t be able to abuse them.

While this was a logical step to take, especially from the drug manufacturer’s perspective, the damage had already been done for many people. Thousands were already misusing the pill, and …

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Is OxyContin Still King?

There are growing signs around the country that the abuse of OxyContin is diminishing. The drug is being bypassed during pharmacy robberies in favor of Opana, methadone and other narcotic drugs, and some hospital emergency rooms are reporting a decrease in OxyContin overdoses.

According to Forbes, the Journal of Pain and other publications, the introduction of a new tamper-resistant form of OxyContin in 2010 seems to be responsible for a decrease in abuse of the drug. Drug addicts previously crushed OxyContin pills to circumvent the drugs time-release mechanism and experience the full impact of the drug in one rush. Instead of allowing drug abusers to crush the pill for snorting or injection, the new OxyContin turns into a gummy mush when tampered with.

Unfortunately, the reformulation of OxyContin does not appear to be leading to an overall drop in drug …

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Prescription Pads Play a Key Role in Drug Abuse

For decades, the small pads of paper used to write prescriptions have been an iconic part of every doctor’s office. Now these seemingly innocent tablets are assuming a more sinister role. According to drug enforcement officials, stolen and forged prescription pads are at the heart of the current epidemic of prescription drug abuse.  In some recent cases, such as that of Dr. Lisa Barden of Rancho Cucamonga, doctors have stolen prescription pads from other doctors and used them to obtain highly addictive painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin. In other cases, pads are printed by counterfeiters. Many law enforcement officials and lawmakers see paper prescriptions as an old fashioned mechanism that encourages fraud. Prescription pads are in high demand on the black market; law enforcement officials report that drug dealers will pay up to $400 for a stolen prescription drug pad.…
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Southern California OxyContin Abusers Switching to Heroin

Drug treatment officials in San Diego County recently reported that the use of heroin by young adults has more than tripled since 2006.  According to Susan Bower, director of San Diego County Alcohol and Drug Services, the increase in heroin use is “scary.”  Admissions for heroin addiction now account for nearly one in five of all treatment admissions at facilities operated by the county.

Many of the addicts seeking treatment have been identified as young men who are switching to heroin as a cheaper alternative to OxyContin.  The black market demand for OxyContin has caused the price to rise to as much as $80 for an 80mg tablet, making heroin an cheaper alternative for addicts despite its deadly reputation. This is the first time in several decades that heroin abuse and addiction has become an issue in San Diego…
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