Prescription Drug Addiction Blog

A recent article in the Louisville Courier-Journal documented the explosion of spending by the Kentucky government on the opiate addiction treatment drug Suboxone. Costs have risen ten-fold in two years, going from just over $600,000 in 2007 to more than $6 million in 2009 and are expected to hit nearly $11 million by the end of this year.

An Associated Press (AP) investigative journalist would find similar results in many states, and the profits from the drug-maker Reckitt Benckiser I'm sure would match, despite our own Federal Government being a co-developer of the drug. What's worse is that while the withdrawal tapering benefits of the drug have been documented in many occasions, it is being sold as more of a maintenance drug instead, which drives the costs up more and addicts still have to be detoxed or tapered back down from the drug. If the intention was only to help addicts, it would have been to use it in very short-term necessary situations and not long-term sales. Their primary intention was to make a ton of money, and it is definitely occurring now. People searching for drug rehab in Kentucky are getting swindled just like many other states. Drug rehab centers should have to be held accountable for their results.

The AP reported this week that giant drug manufacturer AstraZeneca settled a Federal lawsuit for fraud based on illegal promotion of its damagin drug Seroquel. Not only has this drug (and others in the anti-psychotic category) been linked to causing diabetes and creating a manic state in patients, but the drug pusher happily agreed to pay more than half a billion in fines for illegal off-label prototion. Why did they settle? Well, for one reason, they are guilty of fraud. The other reason is that this drug alone was their second-best seller thanks to those illegal practices and they grossed nearly five billion dollars off it in 2009 alone.

Here is yet another example of the outright corruption and death caused by drug companies that our FDA is allowing to occur. These people should have criminal suits filed against them and their executives put in prison. If all they have to do is pay about 10% of gross sales to hold off the government, why would anyone think these practices will stop?

Prescription drugs are arguably the biggest problem in America's healthcare system today. They cause more problems and deaths and increase costs - all to line their own pockets. It's criminal mischief times millions of patients, and this is only one company with only one drug. Multiply that by at least 5 more major companies and dozens of drugs. The result is easily tens of billioins of dollars in profits each year from illegal practices that claim lives, and that doesn't even include the people who wind up becoming dependent on the drugs and need an addiction treatment center.