Fighting Back against Big Pharma
If you are among the millions of Americans who were prescribed opioids for pain resulting from surgery, an injury or illness and subsequently became addicted, you may be happy to know that a growing number of states, cities and counties across the country are suing the manufacturers and distributors of these drugs.
Proponents of the lawsuits say that the pharmaceutical industry put profits before patient care when they marketed opioid drugs like oxycontin to physicians. The heavy-handed marketing practices included assuring doctors that the medication wasn’t addictive and would be safe for their patients to take.
In reality – as you may already know all too well – opioids are, in fact, highly addictive. “Anyone who takes prescription opioids can become addicted to them. In fact, as many as one in four patients receiving long-term opioid therapy in a primary care setting struggles with opioid addiction,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. “Once addicted, it can be hard to stop. In 2014, nearly two million Americans either abused or were dependent on prescription opioid pain relievers.”
We won’t sugar coat things. Opioid detox is rough. Your body and your mind will go through some intense upheavals while the drugs leave your system. Without the proper support, it can be hard to manage the pain of opioid withdrawal.
At Spring Gardens Recovery Center in Tampa, our drug addiction treatment specialists can help you manage detox safely and comfortably is possible. With a personalized approach that involves both physical and emotional support, we will provide a medically supervised program of drug detox in Florida, where you can look forward to starting on your path to recovery.
Ceredo, West Virginia; Seattle, Washington; and Columbus, Ohio are among what the Daily Beast estimates to be “about 250 states, counties, and cities that have filed lawsuits against multiple pharmaceutical companies and distributors of opioid prescription pills that are blamed for turning pain patients into heroin addicts.”
According to the Daily Beast, “The defendant named in most lawsuits is Purdue Pharma, which introduced OxyContin in 1996. The drug is a pain medicine based on a morphine-like derivative that Purdue promised was nonaddictive thanks to its time-release formula. Originally, it was prescribed for acute pain, like broken bones, terminal cancer, or post-surgical recovery. By the 2000s though, it was doled out by doctors to treat chronic and even minor pain.”
While the legal actions being taken across America may be satisfying, it will likely take years for the issue to work its way through the courts. If you are struggling with an addiction to the opioid pain pills your doctor prescribed you can’t wait to begin the process of recovery.
Breaking your addiction to opioid prescription pain killers won’t be easy. Don’t make it even harder than it has to be. Let the experts at Spring Gardens drug detox in Tampa help you through the process. We understand the changes taking place in your body as the opioids leave your system. Your body will recover and regain the ability to produce its own pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters. It will get better.
If you have questions about our non-12-step rehab program or our residential treatment facilities, please call (866) 244-9556 for immediate help.
