Drug overdose

“ More people are dying from drug overdoses today than from gun homicides and motor vehicles combined. Think of it — motor vehicle crashes, gun homicides, more people by far from drug overdoses.
These overdoses are driven by a massive increase in addiction to prescription painkillers, heroin, and other opioids. Last year, almost 1 million Americans used heroin, and more than 11 million abused prescription opioids. The United States is by far the largest consumer of these drugs, using more opioid pills per person than any other country by far in the world. ”

“ But in communities around America, families, teachers, and young people themselves were finding out that those who said drug use was no big deal, whether they knew it or not, were telling a big lie-and a dangerous one. Just how dangerous we all saw 2 years ago when a promising athlete, a young man whose future could have been written in headlines and in gold, died of a cocaine overdose. Len Bias never got to play professional basketball. But today his mother says that his death may have been a message from God to America's young people: Stay away from drugs-all drugs-all the time. ”

“ We will be bringing some very major lawsuits against people and against companies that are hurting our people. And that will start taking place pretty soon. (Applause.)
We’re also supporting first responders’ and medical professionals’ access to the tools they need to prevent deaths through life-saving overdose medications.
At my direction, the National Institute of Health, headed up by Francis Collins, has taken the first steps of an ambitious public-private partnership with pharmaceutical companies to develop non-addictive painkillers and new treatments for addiction and overdose. ”

“ The ‘Lancet’ as well as many of the American medical journals record several cases of poisoning arising from giving an overdose of this drug. The symptoms are a great prostration of nervous energy, accompanied by paralysis of sensation and motion. When death occurs it is probably owing to syncope. The antidotes are, first, an emetic, and after this has acted, stimulants, such as carbonate of ammonia with brandy, or aromatic spirits of ammonia. In cases accompanied with insensibility, recourse should be had to electricity. ”

“ Drug abuse in the United States continues to be a major threat to the future of our Nation. Millions of our citizens are risking their health and their future by abusing drugs. The effects are clearly demonstrated by the tragic reports in daily news accounts of innocent people killed by drunk drivers, death by overdose, drug-related murders, drug smuggling, and other public outrages. Less obvious, but more pervasive, are the individual tragedies which destroy a person or family and which may cause loss of a job, interruption of schooling, and a reduction in our Nation's productivity. ”

“ The opium-eater either dies in collapse through nervous exhaustion (with the blood-poisoning and delirium above-mentioned) , sometimes after an overdose, but oftener seeming to occur spontaneously, or in the midst of physical or mental agony as great and irrelievable as men suffer in hopeful abandonment of the drug, and with a colliquative diarrhea, by which—in a continual fiery, acrid discharge—the system relieves itself during a final fortnight of the effete matters which have been accumulating for years. ”

“ There is some paresis of the extremities, and they refuse to support the body; the respiration becomes laboured, and the pulse rises in frequency to 120 or 130 beats per minute, but the mind remains clear. The symptoms occur in about an hour and a half after taking an overdose of the drug, and, if not excessive, soon disappear, leaving no unpleasantness behind. If, on the other hand, the case proceeds to a fatal end, the respiratory trouble increases, and there may be convulsions, and a course very similar to that seen in experimenting on animals. ”

“ Our drug control strategy will continue all three elements of this successful approach. It will also target a growing problem -- the abuse of prescription drugs by youth. Unfortunately, many young Americans do not understand how dangerous abusing medication can be. And in recent years, the number of Americans who have died from prescription drug overdoses has increased. ”

“ In other words, in narcotic drug addiction some antidotal toxic substance has become the constantly present poison, and the narcotic drug itself has become simply the antidote demanded for its control. ”

“ The number of infants born with opioid dependence has more than quadrupled in the past decade. Nearly 100 Americans, on average, die each day from opioid overdoses, and overdose rates are highest among people between 25 to 54 years old, robbing so many of our young people of their potential. ”

“ The mere fact that a physician has reduced a narcotic addict’s opiate intake from a large dosage to a very small dosage, or indeed has denied him any opiate at all for a considerable length of time, is no evidence that he is curing or [Pg 76] has cured his patient of addiction-disease. Unless the physical mechanism of body-need for an opiate has been completely and actually quieted, the patient may have in his body for perhaps weeks and months after the last administration of the drug, a physical demand for it. The taking of opiate does not constitute opiate addiction-disease. ”

“ Internally, it is sometimes employed to stimulate the heart, to stimulate the respiration, and to allay vomiting. Its repeated use, even as a local remedy, is dangerous, in that it is prone to cause a habit, the symptoms of which are mental failure, loss of flesh and strength, anemia, and intense craving for the drug. The symptoms of acute cocain-poisoning are excitement, delirium, a rapid pulse, hurried [Pg 29] breathing, convulsions, and coma. The dose of cocain is from 1⁄8 to 1⁄2 grain (0.008-0.03 gm.) . As an anesthetic it is usually employed in from 2 to 4 per cent. ”

“ Later I realized the fact that the blame rested almost entirely upon the shoulders of my medical inefficiency and my lack of understanding and ability to observe and interpret. The narcotic addict as a rule will co-operate and will suffer if necessary to the limit of his endurance. Demanding co-operation of a [Pg 7] completely developed case of opiate addiction during and following incompetent withdrawal of the drug is asking a man to co-operate for an indefinite period in his own torture. There is a well-defined limit to every one’s power of endurance of suffering. ”

“ For the benefit of the laity, however, and for the benefit of the occasional fanatic and hysterical reformer it is well to state that without the use of morphine and other opiates the mortality among the sick and wounded would be vastly greater, and many of those who might survive in spite [Pg 117] of its non-administration to them would bear for the rest of their lives physical and mental and nerve consequences of gravest character. The lives and minds that have been saved by the timely administration of an opiate drug are incalculable. ”

“ Cocaine is far worse than alcohol.
People should be very careful about taking patent medicines. There is no excuse for taking them. The most popular ones have as their basis one of the habit-forming drugs.
Most of the soothing syrups contain opium in some form. To give babies opiates is a grave error, to speak mildly. It weakens the child, may lay the foundation for a deadly habit later in life, and often an overdose kills outright. Well informed mothers avoid such drugs and keep their children reasonably quiet by means of proper care. ”

“ The drugs chiefly used are cocaine, opium, laudanum, morphine and heroin. These drugs are much more destructive than alcohol. Cocaine and heroin are the worst. It is very difficult to stop using any of them once the habit has been formed. Nearly every "fiend" dies directly or indirectly from the effect of his particular drug. Every one weakens the body so that there is not much resistance to offer to acute diseases. Every one destroys the will power so that a cure is exceedingly difficult. ”

“ The constant use of narcotics produces a condition in the human body that many physicians of medical authority now recognize as a definite disease, which diseased condition absolutely requires a continued administration of narcotics to keep the body in normal function unless proper treatment and cure is provided.
“Withdrawal of the drug of addiction induces such fundamental physical disorganization and unbearable pain that addicts are driven to any extreme to obtain narcotic drugs and allay their suffering by self-administration. ”

“ The many wrecks of addicts to be seen trying through insufficient supply of narcotic drug, self-poisoned with other drugs which they have purchased, alcohol, bromides, coal tar products, cocaine, and of late hyoscine—their addiction disease unrelieved and undiminished—are sufficient argument against mere reduction of dose, below physical body need. ”

“ Evidence offered by physicians shows that many addicts have died under the methods of treatment existing to-day and that a large percentage of those discharged from institutions as ‘cured’ are driven back to use of narcotics through unbearable physical torture induced by improper withdrawal of their drug. ”

“ Intestinal and autointoxication, combined with worry, fear, and anxiety, constitute very important causative and controlling factors in whatever mental and physical deterioration has taken place in a case of narcotic-drug-addiction-disease. Physical, mental and moral deterioration are to a very small extent direct results of narcotic drug action per se. As long as a narcotic drug addict is maintained non-toxic, uninhibited and unworried, he is practically at his individual normal, plus an added physical need. ”

“ Thousands of people to-day are enchained in the slavery of the poison habit in one form or another, and very few are ever successful in wresting them selves free when once it has been contracted. The habit is formed in the most insidious manner. Often, in the first instance, some narcotic drug is recommended to relieve pain or induce sleep. In a short time the original dose fails to produce the desired effect, it has to be increased, and afterwards still further increased, until the victim finds he cannot do without it, and a terrible craving for the drug is created. ”

“ Unquestionably the drug rapidly affects the brain, and the result has been [71] that, in the south, the asylums for the insane are overflowing with the unfortunate victims. After a person has habitually used the poison for a certain length of time, he becomes mentally irresponsible. No man can use it long and retain his normal mental condition. It is a brain-wrecker of the worst kind.”
Cocaine is a highly poisonous narcotic, and when rubbed on the skin, or injected under it, deadens the surrounding parts, and renders them insensible to pain. ”

“ Two out of three opioid-involved overdose deaths involve synethic opioids, including illegally manufactured fentanyl. When used in combination with other drugs, with or without the user’s knowledge, it can be poisonous and deadly. ”

“ It is apt to recur, and for this reason, if for no other, narcotics ought to be scrupulously avoided. The habit of taking such soporifics is unfortunately becoming much more common, and is productive of many evils. Death from accidental overdose is a frequent calamity ”

“ Misconception of them and neglect of sufficient consideration of them is the tragic aspect of the narcotic drug situation, and causes tremendous individual and economic wastage. They do not in any way associate with underground traffic unless or until driven to it by failure of legitimate sources of opiate medication, or by the surrounding of legitimate sources with such restrictions as make the man of standing and reputation, afflicted with addiction-disease, fear possible publicity and economic detriment. ”

“ Less than the definite amount required for nervous and glandular and circulatory support and organic balance deprives the patient of reaction, places his vitality and energy far below par and for a long time hinders his betterment. More than this amount displays the inhibitory effects of opiates, locks up or slows secretions and body functions, and causes malnutrition, autotoxemia, autotoxicosis, and the consequent mental and physical deterioration commonly and erroneously attributed to the direct action of opiate drug. ”

“ They proceed through the mild discomfort and nervousness of the previous stage to the definite manifestations and constant unmistakable withdrawal phenomena to be described. The patient endures physical suffering and displays all the clinical evidence of it. There can be no question of will-power in this stage, nor of desire for narcotic drug for any other purpose than to escape physical suffering. Whether the patient was primarily an innocent and unconscious recipient of the drug, or of the class of the vicious and weak, he is now fundamentally a sick man, afflicted with a physical disease. ”

“ It is to the element of inhibition of function also that we must look for explanation of what is by far the most [Pg 47] important element in the immediate picture presented by most individual cases. I refer to autotoxicosis and to auto- and intestinal toxemia. The same power that locks up within the body the opiate drug, locks up the toxic products of tissue activity and tissue waste, of intestinal poisons and of insufficient metabolism. Autotoxemia itself is markedly inhibitory in its action, and contributes no little to its own increase and to the further development of narcotic disease. ”