Author Topic: Access to Vicodin and other hydrocodone products to be restricted by DEA change  (Read 159 times)

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Offline agate

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In 2013 I reviewed a book about the dangers created by the overprescription of powerful painkillers, especially oxycontin/Oxycodone.

http://msspeaks.easyphpbb.com/viewtopic.php?t=4217

There has been a hue and cry about these drugs, and now oxycontin has been changed from a Schedule III drug to a Schedule II and will therefore be harder to obtain.

From Physician's First Watch, August 22, 2014:

Quote
Hydrocodone Products to Get More Severe, Schedule II Classification

By Amy Orciari Herman

Edited by André Sofair, MD, MPH

Combination hydrocodone products, currently considered Schedule III drugs, will be reclassified as Schedule II because of their high risk for abuse. The new regulation from the Drug Enforcement Administration will take effect in 45 days.

"Schedule II drugs ... are defined as drugs with a high potential for abuse, less abuse potential than Schedule I drugs, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence," according to the DEA's definition. "These drugs are also considered dangerous."

The move means the drugs will be subject to tighter government regulations, including more stringent prescribing practices. The most commonly prescribed combination product affected by the ruling is hydrocodone plus acetaminophen (marketed as Vicodin or Lortab).

- See more at: http://www.jwatch.org/fw109209/2014/08/22/hydrocodone-products-get-more-severe-schedule-ii?query=pfw#sthash.4ltgZ1RN.dpuf
« Last Edit: August 27, 2014, 02:15:23 pm by agate »
MS Speaks--online for 17 years

SPMS, diagnosed 1980. Avonex 2001-2004. Copaxone 2007-2010. Glatopa (glatiramer acetate 40mg 3 times/week) since 12/16/20.

Offline agate

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More on this, excerpted from the New York Times, August 22, 2014:

Quote
In Move to Curb Drug Abuse, D.E.A. Tightens Rule on Widely Prescribed Painkiller

By SABRINA TAVERNISE


WASHINGTON — The federal government tightened the prescribing for the most common form of painkiller in the country on Thursday, the final step in a policy shift that has been years in the making.

The stricter rule for hydrocodone, which is the most widely prescribed painkiller in the United States and which is an ingredient in drugs like Vicodin, is one of the most far-reaching efforts to stop the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse. More than 20,000 Americans die every year because of prescription drug abuse, according to federal data.

The rule places hydrocodone in a tougher, more restrictive category, and the changes it requires are sweeping. Doctors will no longer be able to call in prescriptions by telephone, and patients will not be allowed to get refills on the same prescription, but will have to return to a health care professional to get a new one. The drug will have to be kept in special vaults in pharmacies. The Drug Enforcement Administration published the rule on Thursday; it will take effect in 45 days.

“This is substantial,” said Dr. Nathaniel Katz, assistant professor of anesthesia at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. “It’s a sign of a shift toward more cautious opioid prescribing.”

He added: “This will be an inconvenience to some, but policy is a machete, not a scalpel, and you have to figure out where to use it. I think people will be more helped than harmed.”

Abuse of painkillers now claims the lives of more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined, according to federal data, and the number of Americans who die from prescription drug overdoses has more than tripled since the late 1990s. Prescription drugs account for the majority of all drug overdose deaths in the United States. In all, drug-induced deaths have outstripped those from traffic accidents.

Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, whose state is among those hardest hit by the epidemic of painkiller abuse, applauded the change. He called the shift “a tremendous step forward in fighting the prescription drug abuse epidemic,” one that he said would “undoubtedly help prevent these drugs from getting into the wrong hands and devastating families and communities.”

Still, the change is sure to draw strong criticism from some pain management experts, who argue that the rule creates unfair obstacles for patients in chronic pain, making it harder, for example, on those who cannot easily make a trip to the doctor.

Other experts point out that the change will not necessarily lead to less abuse. For example, oxycodone, another highly abused painkiller and the main ingredient in OxyContin, has been in the more restrictive category since it first came on the market. Oxycodone and methadone account for far more overdose deaths than hydrocodone.

...
MS Speaks--online for 17 years

SPMS, diagnosed 1980. Avonex 2001-2004. Copaxone 2007-2010. Glatopa (glatiramer acetate 40mg 3 times/week) since 12/16/20.

Offline agate

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"Patients opt for stronger opioids"
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2015, 08:30:06 am »
Are we in more pain than ever before these days? Probably not. But people are wanting stronger pain-killers. Not good.

From MedPage Today,

Quote
Patients Opt for Stronger Opioids

High-potency agents like oxycodone soared in popularity over the last decade.

by Kristina Fiore
Staff Writer, MedPage Today

More patients are using stronger opioids than they were a decade ago, government researchers said.
In 2011-2012, far more patients reported using opioids in the last 30 days that were more potent than morphine compared with weaker-than-morphine opioids (37% versus 20%), Leonard Paulozzi, MD, MPH, of the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues reported in an NCHS Data Brief.


Those numbers were effectively reversed from the 1999-2002 figures, when about 42% used weaker-than-morphine opioids compared with 17% who used stronger-than-morphine opioids.

The flip isn't a surprise; these stronger opioids include oxycodone, fentanyl, oxymorphone, hydromorphone, and methadone -- drugs that have been more commonly prescribed over the time period of the study.

Opioids that are weaker than morphine include tramadol, codeine, dihydrocodeine, meperidine, pentazocine, and propoxyphene.

Hydrocodone and tapentadol are equivalent to morphine, and 30-day use of these drugs has remained relatively stable.

MedPage Today and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have documented a liberalization in opioid prescribing during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and those numbers were often led by sales of OxyContin, the most popular branded form of oxycodone.

The latest NCHS data release also reflects that increase. Use of opioid analgesics among U.S. adults more than doubled from 3.4% in 1988-1994 to 6.9% in 2011-2012, Paulozzi and colleagues report.
Use plateaued in the 2003-2006 period, at 6.9%, which had risen from 5% in 1999-2000.
The researchers also analyzed 30-day opioid use by various demographic factors for the time period 2007-2012.

They found that more women reported opioid use than men (7.2% versus 6.3%) and that there was greater use among whites than among blacks or Hispanics (7.5% versus 6.5% and 4.9%, respectively).

Use was also greater among older patients, with 8.1% of those ages 40 to 59 and 7.9% of those age 60 and up reporting 30-day opioid use compared with 4.7% of those ages 20 to 39.

_____________________
Paulozzi and co-authors disclosed no relevant relationships with industry.
MS Speaks--online for 17 years

SPMS, diagnosed 1980. Avonex 2001-2004. Copaxone 2007-2010. Glatopa (glatiramer acetate 40mg 3 times/week) since 12/16/20.