Homeless in Arizona

When Will Humble was director of Arizona DHS, or Arizona Department of Health Services he did everything he could to f*ck over medical marijuana patients, because that what the Arizona governor ordered him to do.

Now Doctor Will Humble is trying to demonize opiate users in addition to marijuana users in this propaganda piece.

We don't have an opiate problem, we have a "War on Drugs" problem.

If opiates are a problem it is a problem that should be treated as a medical problem, not a criminal problem.

We don't need DEA thugs or government bureaucrats at the CDC telling doctors how to treat patients with pain problems.

We need the government to get the f*ck out of the medical industry, and let doctor's do what doctors know how to do.

We don't need cops playing doctors and throwing doctors in prison who don't agree with draconian police state tactics of the police.

A while back when Will Humble spoke at the HSGP, Jennifer White assured me that Will Humble was a good guy on our side.

After Will Humble spoke, I thought he was an idiot who just parrots the line of his government masters.

I also pretty much feel the same way about Jennifer White. Well in her case it I think it's the Democratic Party.

Source

It'll take some pain to solve America's opiate epidemic

Will Humble, AZ I See It 5:40 p.m. MST April 8, 2016

The CDC's recommendations are nonbinding, but they're the broadest measure in place regarding opioid medications.Video provided by Newsy Newslook

Will Humble: Americans consume more opiate painkillers than the rest of the world combined.

We did this to ourselves. Consumer demand for aggressive pain relief, physicians’ prescribing practices and incentives for hospitals to aggressively manage pain have combined to create an opiate painkiller epidemic in the United States.

One Arizona resident dies every day from an overdose of prescription painkillers.

In the U.S., more people die from overdoses of prescription opiates than car crashes. That's true in Arizona and most other states. In fact, Americans consume more opiate painkillers than the rest of the world combined.

How did we get here?

It started about 15 years ago when the U.S. health-care system became much more aggressive in treating pain.

One of the contributing factors to the epidemic began Nov. 11, 1996, when the president of the American Pain Society introduced the phrase “pain as the fifth vital sign.” He emphasized the importance of including pain as part of the four traditional vital signs: body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate.

The speech resonated.

Shortly thereafter, the Veterans Health Administration included pain as the fifth vital sign in its national pain management strategy. Two years later, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations released Standards Related to the Assessment and Treatment of Pain.

When we institutionalized aggressive pain relief by making it the fifth vital sign we also created incentives that continue to drive the system toward aggressive pain management. Reimbursement may be tied to patients' perception of how their pain is managed, which can drive doctors to over-prescribe. Health-care institutions can be reprimanded when inspectors determine they are not managing pain aggressively enough, thus incentivizing the over-use of opioids.

This change in pain management tactics was motivated by a sincere interest in delivering comprehensive and appropriate pain care, but it also sparked an opioid wildfire.

In the years since pain became the fifth vital sign, the misuse and abuse of prescription drugs has become the leading cause of injury death in the U.S. In 2004 there were approximately 600,000 emergency room visits tied to prescription drugs. By 2010 it had more than doubled to 1.4 million. Prescription opioids are now the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in most states, including Arizona.

Obama's plan focuses on treatment, not prevention

The epidemic has gotten to the point that it’s now on the president’s agenda.

Last week, President Barack Obama proposed a two-pronged approach to address this epidemic. His plan proposed:

$1 billion in new funding over two years to expand access to treatment for prescription drug abuse and heroin use.

Additional funding will expand state-level prescription drug overdose prevention strategies, increase the availability of medication-assisted treatment programs, improve access to the overdose-reversal drug naloxone and support targeted enforcement activities.

All good ideas, but most of the president’s proposals are focused on treatment rather than prevention.

How to prevent pain-killer addiction

The Center for Disease Control has recommended a number of prevention strategies for states to implement, including:

New CDC guidelines recommend that doctors avoid starting non-cancer patients on opiates for pain.

Arizona has been on the cutting edge in terms of implementing these guidelines over the last several years, and went further by establishing prescribing guidelines for emergency departments and clinicians.

The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson was among 60 Colleges of Medicine to pledge that they will provide prescriber education curriculum to their students in the fall.

These combined efforts of treating addicted patients and preventing people from becoming addicted seem to be having an impact already, as opiate deaths have leveled off in Arizona, according to the latest figures from the Arizona Department of Health Services. Still, the epidemic rages.

Take a little pain to stop the vicious cycle

Most of the prevention and treatment strategies underway involve the health-care delivery system and prescribing practices of physicians.

But a big part of the problem that's more difficult to address is the expectation on the part of the general public that any pain they are experiencing needs to be managed aggressively. This puts a demand for opiate painkillers into our health-care system, the natural result of which is to drive doctors toward overprescribing opiates.

Making pain the fifth vital sign was the impetus for today’s complex epidemic. Responses developed because of the epidemic have given birth to policies that appear to be having an impact. But we still need to go further by altering incentives that continue to drive the system toward aggressive pain management.

For these collective efforts to be effective, you and I need to help by recognizing that pain management doesn't need to start with opiates. We all must accept that pain is often a natural part of healing.

Will Humble is director of health policy and evaluation at the University of Arizona Center for Population Science and Discovery. He was director of the Arizona Department of Health Services from 2009 to 2015.