FDA: Kids Need Synthetic Heroin, Too!

pennsylvania dui lawyerSo it’s a beautiful Friday and I’m looking forward to a wonderful weekend with my wife and kids, and this pops up in my news feed:

FDA Approves OxyContin for Children as Young as 11.

What the actual f**k???

Here I, and thousands of other activists are fighting to get medicinal marijuana  approved in Pennsylvania and we’re being fought at every step of the way by people who think a benign drug like marijuana is dangerous. Meanwhile, the FDA is saying, giving synthetic heroin to children makes perfect sense.

I reiterate: WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K????

I spend a lot of time in courtrooms and let me tell you, it’s no wonder we’re seeing increased cases of heroin abuse and related crime. The FDA is giving doctors license to create a whole new generation of drug addicts. It’s enough to make you wonder if pharmaceutical companies are working on a drug to counter the effects of addiction. Not cure, but contain and control, giving them a huge customer base for a long time.

Perhaps if I were more cynical and less principled, I might be happy about this. I mean, I am a criminal defense attorney, and this will almost certainly contribute in a boon for defense attorneys everywhere.

Time and again, during court appearances by people charged with heroin related crimes, we hear the same refrain: “I was under a doctors care and was prescribed OxyContin. When the prescription ran out, I needed more and heroin was easier to get and cheaper, too.”

Consider this:

“… studies by Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Connecticut, which manufactures the drug, ‘supported a new pediatric indication for OxyContin in patients 11 to 16 years old and provided prescribers with helpful information about the use of OxyContin in pediatric patients.'”

The fox is truly guarding the hen house, folks. The FDA admits they are basing this decision primarily upon a study done by the very manufacturer of the drug in question.

What drug dealer doesn’t claim, “My sh*t is fire, bro!”?

This is verging on criminal conspiracy territory on the part of the FDA when they offer no unbiased, purely independent research in making a decision that is likely to have widespread repercussions for both the worlds of modern medicine and criminal justice.

This is terrifying to me as a parent. Kids often share the things they learn with other kids, and it seems quite likely to me that will include OxyContin.

Talk about a ‘gateway drug’! This is like opening the floodgates to a life of addiction, all with the blessing of the Federal Government.

We already have a large number of prescription drugs under fire for doing more harm than good. We constantly see drugs being approved which have a laundry list of potential side effects that are very often worse than the condition they are supposed to treat.

But this goes beyond the pale in both scale and scope. For the legal community, it may represent a windfall in drug-related criminal activity. For example, more and more, people are being charged with DUI in cases involving legally prescribed drugs. These people think it’s okay to drive, as nothing in the warning labels prohibits driving while taking them. A vague warning about operating ‘heavy machinery’ hardly means ‘don’t drive’ to the average person. When I hear the term, ‘heavy machinery’, I think of a bulldozer, not a Hyundai.

Because of the way insurance works, if you have an accident– even if it wasn’t your fault– it becomes your fault if it’s determined you were under the influence at the time it happened. And as I mentioned, increasingly ‘under the influence’ includes prescription drugs.

Nowhere in the above report does it suggest anyone has even considered the likely long term psychological effects of giving children as young as 11 something as potentially addictive as OxyContin. They simply mention moving from one form of opioid to another safely as a prime consideration.

There is a great deal about this FDA decision that truly bothers me, and meanwhile, medicinal marijuana is still considered dangerous.

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