Staggering. That’s the best and really the only way to describe the brutal data laid out in a recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health. In 2008, says the report, well over four and a half million people used a variety of prescription medicines nonmedically for the first time. Our state of Washington is in fact a national leader in death by opioid.
Rep. Jim Moeller led the legislative response this year to that disquieting report. Moeller and others have worked toward defusing the explosion of opiate addictions. It’s an explosion manifested in the fact that across Washington and the rest of the nation opiate abuse rivals highway crashes in terms of the terrible death toll. The Evergreen State is near the top in two awful rankings: prescription-drug abuse and opiate deaths.
The Vancouver Democrat said his legislation recognizes that “this public-health emergency is mounting in the Pacific Northwest, very much including my own region in southwestern Washington.” Moeller’s House Bill 2876 requires health-care boards and commissions to adopt rules regarding pain management, including the prescribing of opioids. The measure passed the House, 96-1, and the Senate, 36-12, and it’s been signed by the governor.
An addictions counselor for more than 25 years, Moeller noted in his remarks supporting the bill that he’s seen a striking upswing in opiate addictions. Indeed, a regional crackdown on the illegal distribution of pain medications includes the investigation of a Vancouver clinic. This past December, an Oregon high-school student died after smoking an oxycodone pill that was prescribed by the clinic. “Although fewer and fewer people are using illegal, fundamentally bad stuff such as meth, heroin and cocaine,” Moeller said, “more and more folks are abusing ostensibly legal medications such as oxycodone and oxycontin.”
You don’t have to be a physician to prescribe these controlled substances in Washington; nurse practitioners and physician assistants can prescribe them, too. Moeller said that while people who live with chronic pain are often under-served, they also – paradoxically – are all-too-often the victims of the over-prescription of opiates. “There aren’t enough medical professionals who possess pain-management training. We should re-emphasize high-quality, up-to-date care for these folks living in pain – and a big part of that re-emphasis is focusing squarely on appropriate patient care,” Moeller pointed out.
Rep. Jim Moeller led the legislative response this year to that disquieting report. Moeller and others have worked toward defusing the explosion of opiate addictions. It’s an explosion manifested in the fact that across Washington and the rest of the nation opiate abuse rivals highway crashes in terms of the terrible death toll. The Evergreen State is near the top in two awful rankings: prescription-drug abuse and opiate deaths.
The Vancouver Democrat said his legislation recognizes that “this public-health emergency is mounting in the Pacific Northwest, very much including my own region in southwestern Washington.” Moeller’s House Bill 2876 requires health-care boards and commissions to adopt rules regarding pain management, including the prescribing of opioids. The measure passed the House, 96-1, and the Senate, 36-12, and it’s been signed by the governor.
An addictions counselor for more than 25 years, Moeller noted in his remarks supporting the bill that he’s seen a striking upswing in opiate addictions. Indeed, a regional crackdown on the illegal distribution of pain medications includes the investigation of a Vancouver clinic. This past December, an Oregon high-school student died after smoking an oxycodone pill that was prescribed by the clinic. “Although fewer and fewer people are using illegal, fundamentally bad stuff such as meth, heroin and cocaine,” Moeller said, “more and more folks are abusing ostensibly legal medications such as oxycodone and oxycontin.”
You don’t have to be a physician to prescribe these controlled substances in Washington; nurse practitioners and physician assistants can prescribe them, too. Moeller said that while people who live with chronic pain are often under-served, they also – paradoxically – are all-too-often the victims of the over-prescription of opiates. “There aren’t enough medical professionals who possess pain-management training. We should re-emphasize high-quality, up-to-date care for these folks living in pain – and a big part of that re-emphasis is focusing squarely on appropriate patient care,” Moeller pointed out.
