Jeff Sessions’ answer to opioid crisis: Americans should opt for aspirin, ‘tough it out’

a reply to: Xcalibur254

I knew people hooked on oxy to manage intense and chronic pain. And their lives before were even worse. Addiction or not, people don't realize what a life of chronic pain does to a person. These two I know would kill themselves if they had no other way to manage their pain.

Then you have people who used it through acute pain. I've been on oxy before, post-procedure, and I never finished my bottle. Because I didn't need it.

I also know people who are hooked that are in no pain. This third category is where the problem is; not the first two.

Sessions conflating all of this as if there are no medicinal purposes for opium derivative medicines is just callous and stupid.

On one hand.. he's got a point.

On the other.. this whole fight seems to do nothing but impact legitimate patients.

A tangentially related issue is telling patients in serious pain that they should "man up and deal with it" (actual quote, said to me by a doctor). When its blatantly obvious there is a serious, terminal issue.. such approaches should never happen.

Bringing up alternatives like kratom and cannabis is a legitimately pertinent part of the conversation as well. But, they are alternatives, not replacements.

Frankly, I strongly suspect most of the "crisis" is inextricably connected to the black market anyway. So, any attempts to enact legislation will only grow that market segment and make the situation worse. We didn't learn much from alcohol prohibition, or relatively basic economics, it seems..

Melania was just in Cincinnati with our great Childrens Hospital being educated further on our Opioid crisis. She was told that in our city, 3 in 100 babies are born addicted to Opiates. All day long they deal with babies crying, screaming, and yes, dying because of this. If the prestigious doctors here thought some EXPLETIVE asprin would do the trick, I'm certain we wouldn't have the problem that we do.

I hope Melania tells Sessions to STUFF IT and if she doesn't, after seeing the live feed of what she was briefed on- then I'm convinced none of them truly cares and it's all for show.

-Alee

Funny how sessions doesn't see the answer to this right in front of his face.

Prescribe less opiates and more medical marijuana.

I would say he is a fool but honesty I don't think sessions is a dum guy.
I believe his problem in this case is lack of knowledge and age.
The older generation was brainwashed pretty effectively on anti-marijuana propaganda.

It took me years to convince my mother of the truth and she is the same age as sessions.
And yes one of the things I got her to do was to suck it up and deal with the pain when she can. She doesn't take any opiates now.
My opinion is that americans in general need to learn to deal with emotional and physical pain in better ways.
I have often wondered why we don't have a class in school that teaches about pain management. Or why the american government doesn't EVER talk about this issue of how we deal with our pain.

In america if your hurt because of emotional pain you cope with it by hurting those around you.
In america you deal with physical pain by taking a mind numbing addictive pill.
In america sometimes we do both.

This has got to change.

Yeah this coming from a man who probably still thinks marijuana makes white girls like black boys and jazz music, and it makes men violent. No surprise that he answers horrible widespread opioid crisis with “take an aspirin and tuff it out”.

What an idiot

You know, at this point in the crisis, I don't think there is a single patient left who is being prescribed pain meds who hasn't had to jump thru all of the hoops: the pain contract you have to sign, the random pee tests, random pill counts, etc... That leads me to believe that the problem at this point is not doctors prescribing opiates, instead it's the black market supplying the drugs.

But telling folks who live in pain to take an aspirin is wrong. I'm a pain patient, I have Ankylosing Spondylitis and Lupus. I spent 2016 in bed, along with over half of 2017. That's how bad my pain was and how sucky my life had become due to the pain (and I'm not even 40 years old!). It took nearly two years and over a half dozen doctors just to get a diagnosis, and until I got the official diagnoses, I received no pain medicine, just doctors treating me like I was seeking out drugs or treating me like it was all in my head. So, OTC meds were all I had. I tried NSAIDS, which includes aspirin. Turns out, I'm allergic to them, and they make me vomit blood due to ulcers I developed in grad school. So no, aspirin doesn't work for everyone.

My hope is that eventually, my rheumatologist will hit on the right medicine that puts my disease into remission and I will no longer need the pain medicine. But in the meantime, I have no other choice if I want to remain a working, active mom and productive member of society.

And guess what the holdup is??? My insurance company, of course! Even though there are numerous new medicines for these conditions that are proven to work better, the insurance company says I have to try ALL of the older, crappier meds that have all of these side effects, and when they ALL fail, then I can try some of the new biologic drugs that are PROVEN to work better.

So, since my insurance company insists I take each of these old drugs for two months each, it means a year of trying useless meds and needing pain medication just to function normally. Cheap bastards...

I think if we are all supposed to suck it up and deal with our pain, our insurance companies (that we give outrageous amounts of money!) should also have to get with the program and allow us medicine that WORKS from the very beginning, rather than knowingly prolonging folks' suffering just to save a little money.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254

Take two aspirin and call him in the morning.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions thinks Americans could easily combat the growing opioid crisis if they would take over-the-counter medications for pain and “tough it out.”

“I am operating on the assumption that this country prescribes too many opioids,” Sessions said Wednesday as he touted the Trump administration’s efforts to combat drug abuse and trafficking. “People need to take some aspirin sometimes and tough it out a little.”

[url=https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/jeff-sessions-answer-to-opioid-crisis-americans-should-opt-for-aspirin-tough-it-out/]Source[/url ]

If anyone was still under the impression that Jeff Sessions was fit for anything other than winning a Crypt Keeper Look-A-like contest hopefully this changes your mind.

So we have a major opioid epidemic in this country. Jeff Sessions' solution? Tell people to take aspirin instead and sick it up.

Between this comment and his crusade against marijuana I'm starting to wonder if he has stock in Bayer. I seriously don't see how anyone can defend this callous, asinine, uneducated statement.

Depends upon what it is I guess, but opioid are over prescribed. Most of the time, they should just take some Motrin and Tylenol and tough it out. Pain can be a guide to help healing in many cases. Although there are some where it can be a hindrance to getting proper rest and so inhibit healing. It's a balancing act, but by and large, I'll repeat, opioids are over prescribed.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

On the one hand, he is right to a degree. When opiods were easier to come by, they were used as a main line of defense against pain. Of course, Vicodin 5, or Darvocet, is nothing like Fentanyl.

Which is the real issue. Why on Earth do we have people on outpatient care taking Fentanyl? Why would it be prescribed? THe main reason has to do with tolerance...but people with that high a tolerance need treatment, and then pain management specialists.

I'd hazard a guess that less than 10k people in the US actually NEED fentanyl.

I have chronic pain. I treat it with 800mg ibuprofen and 1000mg tylenol every 5 hours. It works well. 10 years ago I had doctors giving me 10mg hydro's for the same pain.

All that said...eff Sessions. He isn't a doctor and has no place giving medical advice.

a reply to: DustbowlDebutante

Yah, I feel ya.

The amount of hoops I had to jump through (and still do) is absurd. It took me ~7 years to get proper pain management.

Age is absolutely a factor. The doctors assumed I was simply seeking drugs with so much certainty, they didn't even look at things like MRIs. Literally!

I only found out the more serious issues from my disability lawyer. When I brought it up with my doctor at the time, she said she didn't believe the evidence and because people my age "don't have problems with their bones."

So, not only did it adversely affect pain management, it actually stalled treatments that might have prevented, or at least alleviated, the severity of what I deal with now.

I really wish all these politicians making these statements be injected or fed opiates for about 3 or 4 months, then say "ok, stop"!" Take an aspirin if you need to" ha-ha....
My guess is that on day 1 off they would be in a public bathroom crying and begging on their knees for some. It changes the chemistry of your brain! Instead of needing food, air, and water, it now needs it to function right. Your body and brain are dependent on it almost like all 3 of those. You'll survive, maybe.

I know people are going to be shocked by this. . .

I think Trump is wrong and Sessions is wrong in the way they are targeting opioid addictions.

People, individuals are getting addicted. Themselves.

The government isn't doing it.
Doctors aren't doing it.

It's the people taking the pills that are doing it. Sure, there may be some docs, outliers, who are over-prescribing.

But I'd say 99% of them aren't.


People are addicting themselves.

They are doing it for a variety of reasons. And we expect GOVERNMENT to take care of us?

Isn't this the nanny-state approach that most of us find insulting and nauseating?


If you are addicted to pain pills, either you are in so much pain that the alternative is worse, or you're an abuser.

If you're an abuser? Grow a pair and do something about it. Or get arrested.

I don't care.


If you need them just to live? I'm sorry. I hope you get better eventually.


But government should just worry about the military, deliver the mail, and take care of our roads.

Amtrak sucks!

a reply to: DBCowboy

Doctors are repeatedly making the wrong decisions, though.

I'm not saying that a politician is a lot better, but some of them are doctors and can actually discuss it intelligently.

If you have never done so, you may want to look at how often doctors prescribe the wrong thing, or make the wrong diagnosis, or perform unnecessary procedures, and often more importantly, overprescribing addictive meds and not properly weaning the patient off of the drug.

They're not infallible, and what Sessions said was not wrong on this particular point. I don't find myself defending him often, but this one is easily defended.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
I know people are going to be shocked by this. . .

I think Trump is wrong and Sessions is wrong in the way they are targeting opioid addictions.

People, individuals are getting addicted. Themselves.

The government isn't doing it.
Doctors aren't doing it.

It's the people taking the pills that are doing it. Sure, there may be some docs, outliers, who are over-prescribing.

But I'd say 99% of them aren't.


People are addicting themselves.

They are doing it for a variety of reasons. And we expect GOVERNMENT to take care of us?

Isn't this the nanny-state approach that most of us find insulting and nauseating?


If you are addicted to pain pills, either you are in so much pain that the alternative is worse, or you're an abuser.

If you're an abuser? Grow a pair and do something about it. Or get arrested.

I don't care.


If you need them just to live? I'm sorry. I hope you get better eventually.


But government should just worry about the military, deliver the mail, and take care of our roads.

Amtrak sucks!

Like this .

Drug Distributors Shipped 20.8 Million Painkillers To West Virginia Town Of 3,000

Text477 pain pills for every person. Lawsuit charges drug distributor flooded Kentucky.

TextDrug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in just six years, a period when 1,728 people fatally overdosed on these two painkillers, according to an investigation by the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

a reply to: DustbowlDebutante

Have you tried mitra (kratom)? If you haven't, and live in a state where it hasn't been banned, I promise you it's worth a try.

2 back surgeries about 4 yrs ago here and quit the pain meds in 2015. Now its otc ibuprofen and a ride on the motorcycle to keep myself in check painwise. Ive learned to feed off it than into it.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254


Take two aspirin and call him in the morning.

[This should also be part of OP]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions thinks Americans could easily combat the growing opioid crisis if they would take over-the-counter medications for pain and “tough it out.”
...

“I am operating on the assumption that this country prescribes too many opioids,” Sessions said Wednesday as he touted the Trump administration’s efforts to combat drug abuse and trafficking. “People need to take some aspirin sometimes and tough it out a little.”

Jeff Sessions’ opioid-crisis fix: Americans should opt for aspirin, ‘tough it out’

[end of OP source quote with fixed URL]

If anyone was still under the impression that Jeff Sessions was fit for anything other than winning a Crypt Keeper Look-A-like contest hopefully this changes your mind.

So we have a major opioid epidemic in this country. Jeff Sessions' solution? Tell people to take aspirin instead and sick it up.

Between this comment and his crusade against marijuana I'm starting to wonder if he has stock in Bayer. I seriously don't see how anyone can defend this callous, asinine, uneducated statement.
[End of OP]

Phew! That some major BBcode Judo to make that work!

Sessions blasted marijuana as a gateway drug and lamented the country’s more permissive attitude toward pot.

He pointed at weed use as a path toward opioid addiction, although most research shows that heroin use often starts with prescription abuse.

There! Marijuana. Enough said. These are a bunch of unenlightened dinosaurs whose time should have past. A 70 year old president surrounds himself with "yes men" and we are back to, "Just Say No"!

Just wait until one of his loved ones gets hooked and ODs. How more people have to die?? Who has to die before they "get it", that it is not the addicts fault but the availability of all this crap in the US (oh, and Canada).

The three forms of learning: Deduction, Induction, and Abduction. In Session's case I guess we need to add: Injection.

originally posted by: Abysha

Sessions conflating all of this as if there are no medicinal purposes for opium derivative medicines is just callous and stupid.

I feel like those of you making this claim haven't actually read the article and the pertinent quotes, which are (with my own emphasis):

“People need to take some aspirin sometimes and tough it out a little.”

He went on to brag about how White House chief of staff and former Marine Gen. John Kelly refused opioids after a recent minor surgery.

“He goes, ‘I’m not taking any drugs,’ ” Sessions said, imitating Kelly’s voice and drawing a round of laughter from the crowd. “But, I mean, a lot of people — you can get through these things.”

His obvious point being that not every time an opiate is prescribed, it is necessary, and certainly every time one is prescribed, it shouldn't be taken, given the dangers of the addictive drugs.

This is absolutely a valid statement.

As for your claim that prescription-led addiction is not where the problem is:

The National Institute on Drug Abuse found that nearly half of all teens who inject heroin reported abusing prescription opioids first.

While that only references teens, it's still a big part of the problem, and if they weren't prescribed to the teen, they were prescribed to someone else and they started taking them. Abuse of the prescription drugs, no matter how they are received, is a large part of the problem.

Now, where Sessions goes into his stupidity about marijuana being a gateway drug, that's where his claims start deteriorating.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: DBCowboy

Doctors are repeatedly making the wrong decisions, though.

I'm not saying that a politician is a lot better, but some of them are doctors and can actually discuss it intelligently.

If you have never done so, you may want to look at how often doctors prescribe the wrong thing, or make the wrong diagnosis, or perform unnecessary procedures, and often more importantly, overprescribing addictive meds and not properly weaning the patient off of the drug.

They're not infallible, and what Sessions said was not wrong on this particular point. I don't find myself defending him often, but this one is easily defended.

It's true. People have to be smart enough to not just blindly take pain pills.

I take them for one thing. Kidney stones. The only suicidal thoughts in my life I had were three hours of kidney stones without pain relief. They were particularly bad ones but last time I went the Dr asked if I needed them. Obviously because of the opioid crisis.

Now I have like you never used them for injuries, the pain is there to make sure I don't go playing catch with my son with a torn bicep tendon.

It's a mess. Congress is actually part of this mess for not allowing the Dea to prosecute the manufacturers they knew and found to be over producing.

The pills are traceable and they have know who the bad players are for years. Fent. Is not but there is some blame to go around here. Congress has played their part as well. Like allowing minors to us it for pain management and making drug companies very hard to prosecute.

Sessions is dead wrong on the Marijuana issue that went along with this statement.

In fact cbd is a great drug that should be sold otc like motrin. It is in my state.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: DBCowboy

Doctors are repeatedly making the wrong decisions, though.

I'm not saying that a politician is a lot better, but some of them are doctors and can actually discuss it intelligently.

If you have never done so, you may want to look at how often doctors prescribe the wrong thing, or make the wrong diagnosis, or perform unnecessary procedures, and often more importantly, overprescribing addictive meds and not properly weaning the patient off of the drug.

They're not infallible, and what Sessions said was not wrong on this particular point. I don't find myself defending him often, but this one is easily defended.

Then don't simply trust the doctors.

I mean, c'mon. People should not stop thinking for themselves the second they walk into a doctor's office.