http://www.wsvn.com/story/28255407/tamper-proof-pills
Cory Lewis spent years addicted to prescription painkillers. The “Hard Times” tattoo on his neck is a constant reminder of those dark days. It started when he was prescribed highly addictive oxycodone. Cory Lewis: “I had two surgeries done on my ankle and then I got sent to the pain clinic to pick up medication.” Cory says once the pain was gone, the need for the pills remained.
People who take pain medication after surgery need to understand how to stop taking it, slowly, as the injuries heal. To replace the drugs with alternate treatments, like ice and stretching, to promote healing. But when surgical patients are required to return to work too soon, which happens all the time, then they require that pain medication to function. To make a living. Which usually causes more damage in the long run, including the potential for addiction.
Cory thinks that if the tamper-proof pills were available when he was prescribed, maybe he would not have become an addict and maybe his brother would be alive today.
Cory Lewis: “My little brother didn’t make it. He stumbled in front of a car while under the influence.”
For one thing, no pills are “tamper-proof.” Just visit a forum for drug addiction, and you can easily learn how to get around these abuse-deterrents. And I don’t understand how tamper-proof pills would have made a difference in Cory or his brother’s experience. Unless they were both crushing and snorting the pills. And if they were exhibiting such risky behavior, they would have moved on to street heroin as the new Oxy formulations hit the market, just like others who suffer from addiction. And I have to wonder what other kinds of drugs these two brothers were taking, like Xanax.
And I wonder how Cory is treating his pain now. Did the pain from two ankle surgeries just… disappear?
Nationwide, overdose deaths from pain killers have reached 15,000 a year. The research and development going on here at NSU holds the promise of reducing those heartbreaking losses in the future.
None of the abuse-deterrent formulas have reduced the losses from drug abuse and addiction. In fact, they could easily be attributed to the increase in both the rate of heroin overdoses and the suicide rate.
All Things Chronic 