Why is it so hard to get some prescription drugs in the needed quantities?

[gore]

This is disguting.... Pass it on :


Why is it so hard to get some prescription drugs in the needed quantities?

The main reason is that prescription drugs are being abused and diverted for recreational use. Law enforcement and regulators have a very good and valid reason for trying to control prescription drugs but their efforts are hurting patients and doctors.

The following articles will give you a good idea as to why it is so hard for legitimate patient to get the medication they need

The Village Voice Article: The DEA's War on Pain Doctors
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0345/owen.php

Quote:

The DEA's War on Pain Doctors
by Frank Owen
November 5 - 11, 2003

Twenty-four years after Darlene broke her back in a swimming pool accident, crippling pain still rules every aspect of her life, from getting up in the morning (which she describes as akin to "climbing the highest mountain") to falling into a fitful sleep at night. After years of botched surgery that left her in even more agony, she knows there is no real cure for what ails her, but thanks to synthetic opioids (which include such regulated substances as Vicodin, Dilaudid, and the devil drug of the moment, OxyContin), she says that she can now lead a halfway normal life.

Just folding sheets or washing dishes or sitting at the computer are daily miracles for Darlene, who claims she would otherwise be bedridden and suicidal without the chemical crutches that high doses of these powerful opium-like painkillers provide.
But in some ways worse than the pain, says Darlene (who doesn't want her last name revealed), are the shame and fear that come with it.

Shame when she goes to have her special triplicate prescription—required for all scheduled drugs—filled at the drugstore and the pharmacist looks at her as if she were some addict abusing the drug to get high.

Fear that her medications will soon be taken away by the Drug Enforcement Administration's ongoing crackdown on pain doctors.

"You worry every day that the medicine won't be available for much longer, or your doctor won't be there tomorrow because he's been arrested by the DEA," she claims. All the bad publicity in the press about the abuse of OxyContin by celebrities such as Rush Limbaugh and Courtney Love doesn't help matters.

But, says Darlene, the media scare stories shouldn't blind people to the fact that these drugs—when taken under medical supervision—have made life livable for hundreds of thousands of chronic pain patients, herself included.

Some in the medical community call it "a war on pain doctors," others "a government jihad" or "state-sponsored terrorism." However you describe the current campaign, which according to pain-patient advocates began under Janet Reno, but which they say has increased in intensity under John Ashcroft, the DEA's hardball tactics—storming clinics in SWAT-style gear, ransacking offices, and hauling off doctors in handcuffs—have scared physicians nationwide to the extent that legitimate pain sufferers now find it increasingly difficult to get the medicine they need. Doctors' offices today display signs that say "Don't ask for OxyContin" or "No OxyContin prescribed here." And medical schools advise students not to choose pain management as a career because the field is too fraught with potential legal dangers.

"The war on drugs has turned into a war on doctors and pain patients," says Dr. Ronald Myers, president of the American Pain Institute and a Baptist minister who operates a string of clinics for poor people in the Mississippi Delta. "Such is the climate of fear across the medical community that for every doctor who has his license yanked by the DEA, there are a hundred doctors scared to prescribe proper pain medication for fear of going to prison.

The DEA is creating a situation where legitimate pain patients now have to go to the streets to get their medication. It's a health care catastrophe in the making." (Myers theorizes that Rush Limbaugh is probably "a neglected pain patient" and another victim of the crackdown: "Why else would someone with all his money have to go to the street to get enough medication, other than if he couldn't find a doctor to give him an adequate supply?")

Advocates for pain doctors and their patients have had enough. Limbaugh's recent admission that he's addicted to OxyContin and other painkillers has brought the issue of pain management and the law to the fore in the media. But the September arrest of northern Virginia's Dr. William Hurwitz—a respected if controversial pioneer in high-dosage pain treatment—galvanized opposition among physicians and patients to the DEA's harsh approach.

Hurwitz, a leading specialist in his field, was arrested on federal drug-trafficking charges, accused of prescribing excessive quantities of OxyContin to addicts who he knew were selling the drugs on the street. The 49-count indictment alleges that his prescribing practices led to the death of three patients and bodily harm to two others. Federal prosecutors have depicted Hurwitz, a contentious figure who has had his license suspended three times by medical boards, as no better than "a street-corner crack dealer . . . who dispensed misery and death." After initially being threatened with the death penalty, Hurwitz now faces life in prison.

But others defend the doctor. "Dr. Hurwitz saved my husband's life," says Siobhan Reynolds, founder of the Pain Relief Network, a New York City-based grassroots organization defending pain doctors and their patients. For over a decade, Reynolds's husband has suffered terrible head pain caused by a connective-tissue disorder. "Other doctors treated my husband like a leper. If it weren't for Dr. Hurwitz, he would have killed himself. Dr. Hurwitz is responsible for every day that my son has a father."

After the arrest, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons condemned the prosecution at a news conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., saying that doctors who treat pain patients are heroes, not felons. A major protest on the National Mall is being organized by the National Pain Patients Coalition for next April to bring attention to what some experts regard as the No. 1 health issue in America: the under-treatment of chronic pain. And a push is on in various states to get politicians to pass bills guaranteeing patients' right to opioids to alleviate their suffering, if a doctor deems it necessary.

Many doctors used to think that extreme pain was something that their patients just had to live with. The pain-management movement that has sprung up over the past few years takes a radically different tack, believing that long-term chronic pain can be managed with large amounts of synthetic opium, a treatment that remains controversial both within and outside the medical community.

The extremely high doses often prescribed—sometimes dozens of pills a day—can seem dangerous and excessive to both laymen and other physicians. A number of doctors insist that these drugs are so powerful that no one should be prescribed them except end-stage cancer patients.

But pain-management advocates argue that despite the scare stories, drugs such as OxyContin are actually safer than the alternatives and are much more effective.

The DEA denies there's been an increase in investigations and prosecutions of physicians and refutes the notion that it's engaged in a crackdown on pain doctors in general. The agency insists that it's after only rogue practitioners who overprescribe the medicines and who know—or should know—that their patients are selling the drugs on the black market.

So far this year, says the DEA, the agency has launched 557 investigations, pursued actions against 441 doctors, and arrested 34, a small fraction of the nearly 1 million physicians licensed to dispense controlled drugs. "DEA statistics," the agency proclaimed on October 30, "show that the vast majority of practitioners registered with the DEA comply with the requirements of the Controlled Substances Act and prescribe controlled substances in a responsible manner." The agency added, "Doctors operating within the bounds of accepted medical practice have nothing to fear from the DEA."

But some doctors believe that the DEA, having conspicuously failed to stem the tide of illegal drug use in this country, is coming after physicians to ratchet up the agency's prosecution count. (This year alone, two federal reviews lambasted the DEA for its poor performance in fighting illegal drug use, one report giving the agency a zero on a scale of one to 100.)

"They're unable to take down the real drug lords, so they're coming after doctors using the same tactics," one pain physician tells the Voice. For an agency keen to justify its massive budget, doctors provide an easy target.

Consider some other recent cases:

In Roanoke, Virginia, pain specialist Dr. Cecil Knox and two of his associates were accused of operating what federal prosecutors call "a pill mill." Prosecutors alleged that Knox overprescribed OxyContin and methadone to increase the profits of his financially struggling operation and that this contributed to the deaths of eight patients.

Armed agents in flak jackets raided Knox's office. "They all came in with guns drawn," a clinic employee who was present during the raid reported to the Pain Relief Network. "I thought I was going to die. My husband was helping out that day, and a DEA agent came in and pointed a gun at his head and said, 'Get off the phone now.' " (As this story went to press, news came that the feds failed to win a single conviction in the case; the jury cleared Knox of 30 of the 69 charges, deadlocking on the remaining counts.)

In another case of DEA strong-arm tactics, more than 20 agents burst into a Dallas pain clinic in June. The agents kicked down doors, ransacked the office of Dr. Daniel Maynard, and handcuffed patients, including an elderly woman with a stroller and an oxygen tank.

In South Carolina, physician Deborah Bordeaux was convicted earlier this year under a federal drug-kingpin statute and is currently awaiting sentencing. She faces up to 100 years in prison as a major drug dealer for dispensing opiates to patients suffering from chronic pain at a Myrtle Beach clinic, where she had worked for only two months. Dr. Benjamin Moore, who worked at the same clinic, committed suicide in July 2002 rather than testify against his co-workers.

In Arkansas, Dr. Randeep Mann claims that a patient approached him in 2002 and told him that a federal agent had offered her $250 to say that Mann had prescribed her painkillers in exchange for sex. Mann also charges that another female patient told him that local authorities had offered to forgive her cocaine arrest if she told the same lie in court. "They destroyed my practice and they've managed to run away a lot of my patients, and I can no longer prescribe opioids, but I still have my license," Mann tells the Voice.

In New Orleans, Dr. David Jarrott, who specializes in pain management, claims that an undercover DEA agent posing as a truck driver tried to entrap him by giving him fake X-rays to secure a supply of Vicodin for a supposed bad back. Jarrott also says the same agent tried to bribe him for amphetamine-based diet pills claiming he needed to stay awake while driving his truck. In early October, the doctor had his license suspended for three years after two of his patients died, one of whom, unbeknownst to Jarrott, was mixing street drugs with his legitimate medication.

In Arizona, Dr. Jeri Hassman, who runs Tucson's biggest pain practice, was indicted in March after a sting involving two undercover agents and a three-time-convicted felon. She is being threatened with a 28-year prison term because some of her patients abused prescriptions she wrote.



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It's not just on the federal level that harsh punishment is being meted out. Dr. Robert Weitzel from Utah was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He gave morphine to a 91-year-old patient, who soon after died of heart disease. Weitzel won a retrial (and acquittal) in November 2002 after it was learned that a local prosecutor had concealed exculpatory evidence.

In Florida in the same year, Dr. James Graves was not so lucky, becoming the first U.S. physician to be convicted of manslaughter related to an OxyContin prescription, after local authorities charged that four of his patients fatally overdosed on OxyContin, some of them after combining it with illegal street drugs. Graves contended that his patients would not have died if they had taken the drugs as directed. He is currently serving 63 years.



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Federal officials claim that nearly 500 people died from overdosing on OxyContin in 2002, but a recent article in The Journal of Analytical Toxicology could find only 12 cases in which OxyContin was the sole cause of death; all the others fell victim to poly-drug abuse—mixing OxyContin with cocaine, alcohol, Valium, or various other substances.

"Opioids when taken under clinical supervision are not that dangerous," says the American Pain Institute's Myers. "The data tells us that only 3 percent of people who take opioids become addicts. The latest research conclusively shows that the best medicines for the treatment of chronic pain are narcotics. They have less side effects and more benefits than any other type of drug."

More dangerous, contends Myers, are the everyday drugs that pain sufferers turn to when they can't get narcotics. He talks about something called "suicide by Tylenol": "When chronic pain patients can't get opioids, they go out and use tremendous amounts of drugs like Tylenol and Motrin, which can cause serious liver and kidney damage. Pain patients are dying from kidney and liver disease because of this."

Many pain patients are also dying by their own hand, according to the Pain Relief Network's Reynolds. "All over America, pain patients are committing suicide because of the DEA's campaign," she claims. "I know of at least 17 recent cases in Arkansas alone. It's really astonishing the amount of human carnage that this campaign has already caused."

Fumes Myers: "What's going on here is morally reprehensible and medically incomprehensible and it has to stop. Doctors who treat pain patients are not criminals."






A not so satirical piece of advice to doctors by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc

Quote:
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc

Quote:
ADVICE TO DOCTORS RE: PAIN MANAGEMENT

(or "What the government has taught doctors.")
Until wrongs are righted and procedural changes are made, physicians have little choice other than to be unusually suspicious of new patients, to require unnecessary and expensive tests, to waste time on excessive documentation, or to turn away suffering patients, even if they think the patients may not find anyone else to treat them.

If you're thinking about getting into pain management using opioids as appropriate:


DON'T. Forget what you learned in medical school -- drug agents now set medical standards.
If you do, first discuss the risks with your family.
They could lose a mother or father or breadwinner, their home, their car, their college fund;
There could be years of harassment and legal fees;
Your colleagues will probably ostracize you and family members at the first sign of trouble.
If you are already prescribing opioids:


Beware of new patients. If you accept a new patient, do background checks, demand old records before writing the first Rx, obtain urine screens and get them to sign opioid contracts. It is safer to turn them down, explain why, and give them an action item (call their congressman, for example).

Do thorough physicals, even if unnecessary and not helpful.

Make voluminous notes.

Exercise zero tolerance for patient slip-ups (such as losing a prescription).

Beware of any patients with a history of drug abuse. Even if now clean and in genuine pain, they might be induced by government zealots to testify against you to save themselves from imprisonment on drug charges.

Refer patients early and often to addictionologists, orthopedists, pain specialists, psychologists, regardless of expense or your opinion of helpfulness.

Keep a low profile and beware of saying anything that might offend an official of law enforcement, the licensure board, or the state medical society.

Never forget that you could be held to a standard of strict liability for any patient misbehavior or for any bad outcomes such as death, no matter the cause and without regard to the culpability of the patient or his associates. Remember, your medical decisions will be reviewed by drug agents who will decide if your actions were medically reasonable.

Consider phasing out this part of your practice, giving patients plenty of time to find another doctor.

[Moira]

I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis so I'm no stranger to strong painkillers, and I have to say the skewed thinking surrounding the whole drug issue annoys me intensely. I'll be perfectly honest, I'll take dihydrocodeine (the UK equivalent of vicodin roughly) because I like the effect. Sure, it's a good painkiller as well, but there are an awful lot of people who get it prescribed for medical reasons and completely deny that there are times they'll use it for the "feelgood factor".

Having said that, what are the real dangers of these hydrocodone type drugs? The biggest problem with taking opiates is wanting more. While the withdrawal experienced after suddenly stopping taking them regularly is not on the scale of morphine or heroin, it's still not a fun time and whether or not your medical condition requires pain treatment, that alone would send you back to the doctors for another script.

But none of this comes near to the problems associated with the hard drug alcohol, which is not only widely accepted but positively encouraged, especially among young people in my area of the world. It's completely OK to come to work wrecked with a hangover for instance, but the same inability to do your job due to drug use would lead to instant dismissal. Doctors are starting to see younger and younger people develop cirrhosis of the liver, all alcohol related.

I agree caution needs to be exercised when prescribing opiates, even weak opiates like codeine. But it's taken to stupid extremes. I tried to buy some solpadeine the other day (500mg paracetamol 8mg codeine phos) and couldn't because the pharmacist was on their lunch break. I could have bought as much paracetamol as I wanted! The fact that far more people are admitted to hospital due to paracetamol overdoses than codeine seems lost on the people who make these rules. 8mg codeine phosphate is such a piffling amount anyway, that I'd have killed myself on the paracetamol long before overdosing on the codeine. Yet it was the codeine that needed a pharmacist present before I could buy it. Why? Because codeine actually makes you feel good and that's a sin.

To my mind, alcohol is one of the most stupid drugs of the lot. Yet everyone has the right to go out and get hammered if they so wish, and that's how it should be. I just think the same lack of restriction should apply to other drugs, particularly where there's a medical need or for the softer recreational drugs. However we live in a nanny state where nobody is allowed to take responsibility for their actions and adults are not allowed to decide what they can or cannot do to their own bodies.

[gore]

Look on the bright side; you can actually buy Codeine over the counter. Here ni the "Land of the free" even that little 8MGs of Codeine is prescription.

And for the heads up, yes, you'd die from Aceteminophen LONG before Codeine. Generally 800 MGs is the LD50 of Codeine, and for Hydrocodone, the ingrediant in Vicodin, Lortab, and others, it's... A lot.

It takes 4 full bottles of Vicodin for there to be enough Hydrocodone to kill a premature born 2 pound Baby. Yet just one bottle worth has enough of the Tylenol in it to kill a full grown man.

Also note Opiates have no long term side effects other than addiction. Opiates don't effect any of the bodies internal organs nor do they do any damage to the human body unless there is an OD of which isn't easy unless it's an illegal drug.

The reason people OD on Opiates most of the time, is because they either do one of two things:

1. They aren't legal, like Heroin or Opium, meaning there isn't a sticker on the bottle telling you how much is safe to tak.

2. They take OxyContin (Time released Percocet / Oxycodone) and crush it for a Heroin like high, which can kill you because the time release is broken and a large amount of it hits all at once.

Back when Heroin was legal and over the counter people sure as hell weren't dying from an OD. It came in a bottle and you knew how much was safe to take and how pure it was.

The same thing happened with alcohol during prohibition. The govt outlawed it and so people made it at home and sold it for more than 10X the usual price and since most of these people only cared about the money they didn't brew it properly.

Bathtub Gin didn't get it's name because it sounded cute, it was given that name because it was Gin made in a Bathtub along with all the dirt and other non clean things found in a bath tub.
People died from drinking this crap quality alcohol just as they do now from the crap quality drugs people make for profit only.

It used to eb easy to tell for Opiates how pure something was by tasting it, because Opiates taste bitter. Believe me, I just chewed up 4 Vicodin ES, it's bitter, yet now I can finally type since pulling a muscle in my spine.

But now people add things to it to make the taste bitter so there isn't a way to tell how pure it is. Therefore, people don't know how much to use and OD.

I know a lot of people on AO disagree, but I don't care, if you want proof of how right I am, make your own Aspirin or Tylenol, and take some for a head ache. 10.00 says you'll drop dead of an OD, but since they are both legal, you can buy it in a store in a bottle with how much is safe right on the label, same thing with illegal drugs. The laws against them make them more dangerous then the drugs themselves could ever be.

Oh and the new anti drug commercial on TV recently of a woman making meth in her home while the people upstairs have a small child playing injesting the chemicals... Blame the DEA, that stuff was easy to get back in WW2 and now they cracked down on it so people just make the **** at home and since the chemicals are explosive obviously, people are killed making it.

Also, as a side note, price, people bitch and whine all the time that drug addiction makes people live on the street and destroys their lives. That's bullshit.

The laws against them however, do actually do that. Want more proof? $1,000.00 worth of Street Cocaine, costs $1.00 to make. But since it's illegal, people can charge whatever they want.

If the govt learned it's lesson from prohibition they'd legalise that and Opiates and put them over the counter and tax the **** out of them, and they would STILL be cheaper than what they are now.

It's easy to make your own Morphine. Go to the spice rack isle of a store, buy Poppy Seeds, they are usually Persian Blue Poppy plant seeds, sprinkle them on the dirt, give them good sun light and water and in two weeks they sprout and start producing Morphine.

When the flowers bloom, they last about 3 days, after the petals fall off, wait two weeks then scrape the pods gently with a knife or pin, and the white stuff that oozes out is Pure Opium. It contains Morphine, Codeine, and Thebaine.

Just scrape them and let it sit and dry on the pod, it turns brown, and gooey, peel it off with a butter knife. You've now broken the law. You've also got pure Opium at the same time.

Amazing isn't it? The pods contain thousands of seeds and you don't even need to plant them, and the next year you'll have thousands of them for every seed you planted, and to think, it costed you $3.00 US to buy thousands of seeds, each making a plant sprout, worth on the street, about $500.00.

THAT is why drug dealers don't need to get a job, something costing them $1.00 sells for $1,000.00.

See the problem now? For the record, I don't sell, I have chronic back pains, and bone problems, and can't get even Tylenol with Codeine in this country. My Dr checked me out and wouldn't give me anymore pain killers even though the muscle near my spine is currently in a knot.

Yet I can drive 5 minutes to Canada and get Codeine right over the counter. It's sad that in this country I can't get anything I actually need from a Dr yet in any other country I can buy it over the counter.

That's one of many reasons I hate living here. It's perfectly legal for letting a patient suffer but for the patient to say enough is enough and do something to help themselves out, they go to prison.

Drug laws are also mostly not Constitutional. Freedom of Religion, Life, Liberty, and the Persuit of Happiness.

God made all seed bearing plants and in the Bible it says all seed bearing plants may be used for food. Therefore, Drug laws are against the law.

Some people have told me just because God put them here doesn't mean God wanted us using them.

Well that's not true either, every Human on the planet is born with Opiate receptors in their brain and spine, the sole purpose of this is to process Opiates. There are also other areas in the Human body that do nothing more than react when an Opiate is given.

also for the SxE anti drug people who say Opiates won't make you Happy, because it's chemical... Well Happiness itself is an emotion caused by the same chemicals that Opiates release, so therefore, YES IT IS A REAL HAPPY.

/rant.

-Dr. Gore, MD. (I should be a Dr but I wouldn't be in the US).

For anyone here who IS a Dr and is reading what I've said with disgust, remember you took the oath of Hippocrates. Your job is to help patients, not make them suffer. And if anyone is here from the DEA, choke on my name.

And to Moira, it's nice to see someone who's actually got the balls to show what they believe in and stand up for it. Generally when it comes to these drug posts I'm by myself fighting for what I believe in.

Addicts has 300 I'm drunk threads frmo members which are perfectly fine, yet one saying I'm stoned would be closed and flamed.

And as pointed out by Moira, Alcohol is the MOST dangerous drug known to man. It attacks EVERY organ in the Human Body. It does kill Brain Cells, they don't come back, yet pot is the drug blames from frying someone's mind? Haha.

[mohaughn]

And for the heads up, yes, you'd die from Aceteminophen LONG before Codeine. Generally 800 MGs is the LD50 of Codeine, and for Hydrocodone, the ingrediant in Vicodin, Lortab, and others, it's... A lot.

It takes 4 full bottles of Vicodin for there to be enough Hydrocodone to kill a premature born 2 pound Baby. Yet just one bottle worth has enough of the Tylenol in it to kill a full grown man.

Gonna call bullshit on that one.. The lethal dose of hydrocodone is roughly 40mg. Acetaminophen is toxic at 7.5 - 10g. Notice the difference between milligrams and grams. Vicodin has between 5-10mg of hydrocodone in them. So unless each bottle only has 2 pills you would die well before you started that second bottle.

* Vicodin: 500mg acetaminophen / 5mg hydrocodone
* Vicodin ES: 750mg acetaminophen / 7.5mg hydrocodone
* Vicodin HP: 10mg hydrocodone / 660mg acetaminophen

http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dai...att-6-vol1.pdf Page 13 gives the lethal dosage as required by the FDA to be printed on bottle labels.

So taking 8 vicodin would give you 4grams of acetaminophen and 40mg of hydrocodone, you'd go into respiratory distress. Taking 4 vicodin HP would give you 40mg of hydrocodone and 2.6grams of acetaminophen. Again, respiratory distress is what would kill you.

Here are some quotes-

"In adults, hepatic toxicity has rarely been reported with acute overdoses of less than 10 grams, or fatalities with less than 15 grams."

"The toxic dose for adults for acetaminophen is 10 g."

So there is no way in hell a newborn could handle 4 bottles of Vicodin. Some of the totally off the wall "facts" that have been posted in this thread make the entire thread worthless.

[gore]

Gonna call bullshit on that one.. The lethal dose of hydrocodone is roughly 40mg.

No disrespect meant, but I've taken over 120 MGs in a 12 hour period and I'm not dead. Unless you dropped a zero and meant 400, which is closer to the actal LD50 (375MGs)

Acetaminophen is toxic at 7.5 - 10g. Notice the difference between milligrams and grams.

Yea, I know. give or take it's 10,000 MGs and it's a slow painful death that isn't anywhere near instant, you'd lay there dying as your body shut down for close to a week.

[QUOTE]
So taking 8 vicodin would give you 4grams of acetaminophen and 40mg of hydrocodone, you'd go into respiratory distress. Taking 4 vicodin HP would give you 40mg of hydrocodone and 2.6grams of acetaminophen. Again, respiratory distress is what would kill you.[QUOTE]

Again, I've taken way more than that at once. Not because I was tyring to die or get high, but a Migraine is some of the most severe pain you can live through, I took 9 Vicodin, at once.

So there is no way in hell a newborn could handle 4 bottles of Vicodin. Some of the totally off the wall "facts" that have been posted in this thread make the entire thread worthless.

I said the amount of Hydrocodone in it, and also said the Tylenol / Paracetemol / Acetaminophen would kill long before the Hydrocodone did.

Also note the LD50 which is as I pointed out around 375 MGs, isn't usually done as a full on dose, most of the time when you read into an LD50 it's "per 2kilos of weight on the body" so the 40 MGs you found, was most likely per 2 pounds of human weight. Which would make sence with the two pound premature I brought up.

"For Hydrocodone bitartrate: Oral rat LD50: 375 mg/kg, investigated as a reproductive effector. ("Humans are probably much more sensitive." -- Gosselin, Smith, Hodge, "Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products" 5th Edition, 1984, p. II-239.) "

375 MGs per KG... I also noted the last part where humans are more sensitive "probably", but I don't think I've ever seen 375 MGs of it pure. Again, as I said, OD on Hydrocodone would be DAMN hard.

http://bulkpharm.mallinckrodt.com/_a...msds/CODBS.htm

[mohaughn]

No disrespect meant, but I've taken over 120 MGs in a 12 hour period and I'm not dead. Unless you dropped a zero and meant 400, which is closer to the actal LD50 (375MGs)

I wasn't given the ld50. I was giving the FDA overdose label information. 8 tabs of Levophed is considered enough to be considered a toxic dose. I said lethal, I meant toxic. Anyways I was only countering your assertion that a newborn could take 4 bottles of vicodin. I would also not consider the drug tolerance of somebody who admits to taking large quantities, more than any doctor would prescribe, as being the normal or expected results for the vast majority of the population. You would not be in the 50% that would die in an ld50 test. So your drug tolerance can't be used to talk about the safety of any drug.

I know people who deal with weekly migraines and do it without medicine. So you won't get any sympathy from me because your doctor won't prescribe you enough vicodin so that you can eat 8 at once and still have a stash left over.

[Moira]

Yes I know that in the States a lot of things are illegal that we can buy over here. Piperazine products, anything containing codeine, and until recently we could click a button and get fresh shrooms delivered to the door. They're now class A, but in the US that was always the case.

Alcohol can cause untold misery and violence - and this is just the impact of living with an alcohol abuser. How many destroyed marriages are there due to people taking legally prescribed hydrocodone? I'm not saying drugs shouldn't be treated with respect - dihydrocodeine has teeth! - but blind panic is not appropriate either. The tragedies associated with drug deaths (and there are far fewer deaths than caused by smoking or alcohol) are not normally due to the drug itself - more the lifestyle it gets you leading. The people you associate with, the rubbish that is available on the street and the "forbidden fruit" appeal that leads people to go overboard when they do get hold of something normally not available.

So called drug education often does more harm than good. If you tell people that a particular drug has all sorts of undesirable effects and does untold harm, and then people take it and realise that actually, that isn't the case, what could be a very persuasive argument is lost straight away. Far better to tell people that yes, drugs will make them feel good, but there can be a payback. Set out the disadvantages and the advantages of using drugs and tell people the truth. Because it was the "do gooders" who killed Leah Betts, not the Ecstasy she took. They managed to instill the idea that E caused dehydration at dangerous levels and led to her drinking water that due to the nature of the drug she'd taken, her kidneys were unable to cope with.

[nihil]

Moira,

My friend gore and I have had interesting discussions on this subject.............. I loved it when he told me that one of my prize winning cacti would have got me 5 years for possession in the US.

Also, he was amused when I messaged him that there was a BBC programme where they were in some public gardens discussing the opium poppies...........I have quite a few, they seem to do well here for some reason................ even our local council can grow them!

Your problem is just a quirk in our laws............ only the pharmacist can sell certain OTC medications............ a few cough mixtures come to mind, and Dr. Collis Brown's stomach medication (morphine sulphate?). Also, you have to be 18 to sell alcohol to someone, even if they are 90!

Same sort of laws apply to petrol and diesel............... I worked in a garage when I was at university

[Moira]

I don't think Dr Collis or codeine cough linctus are available as OTC medicines even with a pharmacist present now you can buy pseudo codeine linctus, ie not the real thing.

I used to work for two doctors and it was amazing how they would pontificate about the over prescribing of certain medicines (notably antibiotics and benzos) yet when it was their sore throat or inability to sleep, then they took everything going!

I am downloading a brilliant 20 minute Penn and Teller programme called Bullshit - The War on Drugs. It makes some excellent points and is well worth viewing. I'll upload it onto my site when this torrent has finished and post a link.

[gore]

Benzodiazepines are VERY addcitive, I'd put them next to Heroin, it only takes two weeks of use to become addicted physically and emotionally. Codeine.... Ehhh, I don't think I've ever seen someone hooked on that, mainly do to me being by the border and if someone took enough to actually have a small addiction gonig they could get enough to wean themselves off.

Codeine and Vicodin withdrawels last about 3 days. Morphine maybe a week, Heroin two weeks, but a severe addiction could take up to a year to fully be over. The sleepless nights would last but the actual pain from not having it goes away in less than a month.

I can get Valium easier than Vicodin here and Valium is way more addictive and has way more side effects.

I've had almost every Opiate on the planet at least once except for Heroin, and not one of them ever made it so I was sleepy. They actually keep me up longer.

I haven't had bad side effects to any of them and I'm deathly allergic to anti inflammitorys, meaning if Tylenol isn't strong enough, I'm screwed. And when Tylenol is strong enough I rarely take one because that's just not enough pain for me to whine about it.

Also I generally take an Opiate down with Mountain Dew, the Caffeine and Acidic properties make it intensify the effects of Opiates.

The only thing I can take for my BAD Migraines, is Dilauded and Morphine, nothing else works.

I don't drink, I smoke cigarettes, I have smoked pot but not in years, and the reason I did it was because I was told not too (Tell a 5 year old not to push a button, see if they listen....) I don't do hallucinogens, I do enjoy Opiates because they allow me to function normally and take away the pain.