PDMP made into law will have Missouri joining the other 49 states in attempting to reduce drug overdoses and addiction through enforcement. However, it will also have Missouri joining other states around the country in a ridiculous contradiction.

The Contradiction

Missouri is one of many States with a Drug Court program, a voluntary but costly alternative to incarceration available to non-violent drug offenders. In Missouri, completion is rewarded with expungement of the drug offense related to a person’s participation in the program. Essentially, it’s the state’s way of acknowledging not all drug offenders are violent. It also acknowledges that non-violent offenders don’t deserve to be burdened with a criminal record, and kept in a system of incarceration and probation that negatively alters their future in society.

PDMP, on the other hand, is a state-run program specifically targeting non-violent drug offenses. Here we have two conflicting government systems—one criminalizing non-violent drug offenses with a subsequent system asserting non-violent drug offenses shouldn’t be criminal. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right one is doing.

The Hypocrisy

So which is it? Is non-violent drug use criminal? Or are only violent actions criminal? The state says both—unless the non-violent prove themselves worthy of not being treated as criminals by jumping through challenging hoops and paying large sums of money to the courts, strung out over a period of one to two years. Effectively, non-violent drug users are offenders because MONEY. And the revenue collected doesn’t even come close to alleviating the tax burden funding these wasteful programs.

If Missouri really wished to make a dent in addiction and overdose cases, it could at least try NOT to contradict itself. Sending mixed messages is the wrong message. In this wildly spun web of hypocrisy, only one message is clear—the War On Drugs is alive and well. PDMP is just a thinly veiled escalation, doomed to fail just as the rest of the Drug War has.

The post Government Fail: Missouri Legislature Contradicts Itself in the War on Drugs appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

[Missouri Is Fighting Alone Against Drug Monitoring (And Why The Entire USA Should Thank Them)]

Although not a new problem in our society, drug overdose seems to have received a lot more attention since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, with state governments scrambling to come up with viable solutions to curb what is being called an opioid epidemic. Their strongest push for creating a government-related program to fix a government-related problem comes in the form of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP). These programs promise to help prevent drug-related deaths by somehow curbing drug addiction – a feat not yet achieved despite decades of government intervention.

These attempts by governments to thwart addiction will continue to fail, as they have ever since New York implemented the first PDMP in 1918. If you think I sound overly sure of myself in making this claim, rest assured there is good reason – I am a recovering addict. On December 21, 2019, I celebrated 13 years being clean. This anniversary was especially momentous because it marked more years being clean than the years I spent in active addiction.

My experience with addiction comes not from studying from afar and in textbooks, but from firsthand experience dealing with my own addiction as well as my interactions with fellow addicts. The following is what I consider to be the top four reasons PDMP can’t battle addiction.

1. Chemical Dependence Does Not Equal Addiction

Conflating chemical dependence with drug addiction is, in my opinion, the most common misstep advocates of PDMP continue to make. You can find myriad sources stating that chemical dependency is the same as substance abuse; however, I would argue that is a misunderstanding.

There are many medical reasons why a person may develop a chemical dependence to a regimen of drugs. A common example is management of chronic pain which cannot be treated with a medical procedure. Many of these people don’t like their choices for pain management, and are always searching for alternative courses of action to take other than being chemically dependent on a substance. I would not call an individual in this situation an addict. After all, an addict would justify their drug use with medical necessity (among other reasons) rather than search for alternatives to substance use.

Another medical reason is a circumstance one of my own family members went through: treatable physical injury. Suffering from multiple degree burns in a house fire, this family member underwent several stages of treatment in the hospital – skin grafts to repair areas of their body too damaged to heal, followed with inpatient monitoring while the healing process ran its course. They were in severe pain the entire time, and pain management was required for the months they remained in the hospital.

This family member developed a chemical dependence on demerol, the drug chosen for pain management as they healed. A final stage of weaning off the drug was needed before treatment was complete, which was also done in the hospital under supervision. Sadly, this weaning process is more often not done in an inpatient setting, and this lack of medical supervision is where this form of chemical dependency can progress to substance abuse.

Herein lies a key difference, in my experience, between chemical dependence and addiction. Chemical dependence to drugs like Doxycycline 100mg seems to largely stem from medical necessity, whereas drug abuse and addiction, for the most part, does not have its origins with a physical medical purpose. PDMP laws are unable to acknowledge this distinction. They can only view all individuals in the same light. This is a disservice to medical patients and addicts alike, and it can push both away from safe medical treatment.

2. Dual Diagnosis Treatment

Dual diagnosis is a term describing a person with both a mental illness and a drug abuse problem. A preexisting mental illness, if left untreated, can lead to drug and alcohol addiction, and addiction can manifest a mental illness. In these situations, an addict needs to overcome their addiction and may need to be prescribed medication to treat the symptoms of their mental illness, which is a conundrum in itself without being exacerbated by government controls.

In a recent paper, researchers shed some light on how these individuals fall through the cracks of the US healthcare system, due in large part to drug policy and programs focusing on criminalization and incarceration rather than treatment. PDMP  is one such program which enables law enforcement in this endeavor, leaving these people untreated for both their addiction and their mental illness.

3. The Drug Of Choice Fallacy

Proponents of PDMP  also fall prey to another misunderstanding of addiction when advocating for these laws; the fallacy that addicts are addicts because of the drugs they use. Nearly every argument favoring PDMP I’ve encountered asserts that drug monitoring is effective in fighting addiction because it can be used to limit or restrict access to an abuser’s “drug of choice.” I can assure you, when in active addiction, I had no “drug of choice.” There were certain drugs I preferred, but I would have settled for whatever I could acquire soonest or easiest.

For an addict, the substance used is not as important as the craving to appease our addiction. I have known plenty of recovering drug like Accutane addicts who relapsed on alcohol, and even substances that aren’t considered drugs. I can relapse with what I can find in a grocery store, hardware store, gas station, or on the street corner. PDMP can’t do anything to address that. In fact, the very nature of this law will drive an addict to riskier, more dangerous substances.

4. Addiction Recovery Is Voluntary

This is going to be the hardest pill for drug control advocates to swallow. Seeking recovery from addiction is a voluntary choice. An addict cannot be compelled to quit. This renders legislators’ attempts to force addicts clean through required treatment and drug restriction by PDMP ineffective.

Nothing exemplifies this truth more plainly than the success of voluntary recovery programs. For more than half a century, a smattering of anonymous 12-step support groups have aided more people in recovery from addiction than all the government funded programs to date. Countless millions worldwide find solace from private community organizations, churches, and institutions that don’t even actively recruit. Just letting people know they are there is enough to attract those in need on a voluntary basis.

Perhaps that is part of the reason legislators think they need to compel individuals – so they can legitimize an ever-encroaching government co-opting what society can handle on its own when given the chance. Addicts don’t need government programs to hinder them. They need government out of the way so they can succeed.

The post Why Prescription Drug Monitoring Can’t Battle Addiction: An Addict’s Perspective appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Another legislative session has come to an end in Missouri and  liberty loving legislators stopped a bill creating a statewide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) .

Proponents of the bill must have seen this coming, but the push for support next year began before this year’s session ended.

Shortly after the successful filibuster of the PDMP bill, led by state legislators comprising the Senate Conservative Caucus (coined Chaos Caucus by their critics), crusaders for the bill in the state legislature and elsewhere came back out of the gate with the same tired arguments of the past seven years, which have been met with increasing pushback from opposing legislators and the general public. This time they’ve added a fresh new twist — a news article from Kaiser Health News (KHN). They are now touting findings from a recent WalletHub study, to shame Missouri’s citizens into compliance.

This article claiming Missouri is third worst in the country for drug use based on the review has been making its rounds on social media and mainstream news outlets, and been shared and linked in reference to statements made by state politicians both local and federal. Titled “Why Missouri’s The Last Holdout On A Statewide Rx Monitoring Program”, it actually spends very little time talking about why and the rest of the time lambasting Missouri for not conforming with the rest of the United States.

So what could be so damning of Missouri in this study?  I decided to have a look….

The first point of interest is the methodology used for determining drug use by state… which was only half focused on drug use.  It also focused on law enforcement and drug abuse treatment. And wouldn’t you know it, one of the fields in law enforcement scoring was whether or not a state had a PDMP?  It seems a little self-serving to argue that a state needs a PDMP by referencing a study penalizing them just for not having one, wouldn’t you think?

Logic. It’s a thing.

The next item I noticed was their breakdown of Top & Worst 5 States in key categories, which include:

Highest % of drug users

Most opioid prescriptions

Most overdose deaths

Most drug arrests

Highest % of unmet drug treatment

Fewest substance abuse treatment facilities

Most people receiving treatment

Missouri didn’t hit the top 5 list in ANY of those categories.  Yet somehow, they’re supposed to be third worst in the nation?

It’s strange that someone from KHN would ignore a study released just earlier this year by their own organization, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which focuses specifically on how states stack up regarding drug overdose deaths. Now THAT’S the kind of information that would be useful in determining the need for state programs, especially considering how PDMP is supposed to help prevent overdoses and deaths.

According to this study, most states, as well as the District of Columbia, have experienced an increase in opioid overdose deaths.  So PDMP really isn’t helping states in that area. It couldn’t have anything to do with PDMP forcing people to get the dangerous stuff from the streets, could it?

While WalletHub only focuses on opioids, KFF breaks down the overdose deaths from all drugs state by state.  The data collected tells a different story in the case of Missouri vs. The Other 49:

– Missouri ranks 22nd in opioid overdose deaths.  A far cry from 3rd worst.

– Missouri ranks 21st in all drug overdose deaths, so their opioid “crisis” doesn’t sound like much of one.

– Missouri ranks 34th in the increase of opioid overdose deaths, with only a 4% increase. Again, early everywhere increased at the same time, and Delaware was number one with a 64% increase. Way to go, PDMP….

– Missouri ranks 44th in the increase of all drug overdose deaths. They actually DECREASED by 1%. In fact, only 11 states overall had a 0% change or a decrease, suggesting it’s not PDMP doing anything at all.

Next the article accuses its opponents of conspiracy theory.

Why won’t Missouri establish a PDMP? Data-sharing.  

Missouri wants to keep all medical information of its citizens private, plus Missourians aren’t too keen on having their names put on lists. And with the latest calls for nationwide gun registry, nationwide red flag laws to confiscate guns, and state legislatures wanting to use law enforcement to judge a person’s state of mental health, can you blame them?

Bizarrely, the article also substantiates Missouri’s data-sharing “conspiracy theory” by stating, “data-sharing can occur only among states that have managed to bend or rewrite their regulations to accommodate the one state in the nation without a statewide program.”

You mean Missouri is actually doing all the citizens of America a favor by making it harder for every state to share their medical records nationwide?

As a Missourian, I think it sounds like a “Thank You” is in order.

So, you’re welcome.

And viva la Conservative Chaos Caucus!

The post Missouri Is Fighting Alone Against Drug Monitoring (And Why The Entire USA Should Thank Them) appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.