Quotessence
Home / Topics / Opioid Abuse Quotes

Opioid Abuse Quotes

Browse 16 quotes about Opioid Abuse.

Opioid Abuse Quotes

“Government agencies are trying to get doctors to cut back on prescribing opioids. I understand that they need to do something about the epidemic of overdoses. However, labeling everyone as addicts, including those who responsibly take opioids for chronic pain, is not the answer. If the proposed changes take effect, they would force physicians to neglect their patients. Moreover, legitimate pain patients, like myself, would be left in agony on a daily basis.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesAddictsOpioidsChronic Pain StigmaOpioid UseOpioid AbuseLabellingMedical NeglectPain Patients
Author:Alison Moore
Create image

“We have a genuine and devastating epidemic of opiate abuse in this country, and it is of critical importance that this problem be addressed. But we must do so in a way that doesn’t cut off an effective (and often the only) treatment for the chronically ill, many of whom are able to function in this world at all only because of the small respite that responsible opiate use provides.”

AddictionStigmaChronic IllnessChronic PainEpidemicOpiatesChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefOpioid UseOpioid AbusePain ManagementMedical NeglectChronically Ill
Author:Michael Bihovsky
Create image

“The addiction crisis is terrifying, and many people don’t comprehend appropriate opioid use. When I first started taking pain medication, I remember a family member saying, “Dianne, you’re going to become an addict!” We need to help people understand that taking pain medicine to maximize one’s ability to be productive and to sustain enriching relationships is very different than the disease of addiction, which limits one’s ability to contribute to society and maintain healthy habits.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesPainkillersChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefOpioid UseOpioid Abuse
Author:Dianne Bourque
Create image

“My doctors, who are not cavalier with prescriptions, give me this medication because I have earned their trust. And yet, with mounting government and public pressure, my doctors’ hands are becoming increasingly tied. They apologetically explain to me why they are required to make the medication even harder for me to get, against their own medical judgment. If the day ever comes when they aren’t allowed to prescribe Percocet to me at all, it may well be the end of the minimal quality of life I fight so hard to achieve.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesChronic Pain StigmaOpioid UseOpioid AbusePublic PressureMedical JudgementPain RefliefPerscriptions
Author:Michael Bihovsky
Create image

“I currently take Lortab, which is a combination of acetaminophen and hydrocodone. I’d rather not take this medication, or any medication for that matter, but it is the only one that controls my pain adequately enough to allow me to function on a daily basis... I take the smallest dose possible to enable me to remain as clear-headed as possible to do what I need to do each day... Even with the minimal opioids I take, I still have pain all the time, 24 hours a day; without opioids, life would be torture.”

Chronic PainOpiatesPainkillersOpioidsChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefOpioid UseOpioid AbusePain ManagementPain Killer PillsPain Patients
Author:Alison Moore
Create image

“There were leaders here and elsewhere who agreed with the woman, he knew, including an Ohio sheriff who'd recently proposed taking naloxone away from his deputies, claiming that repeated overdose reversals were "sucking the taxpayers dry." Lloyd thought immediately of the answer Jesus gave when his disciple asked him to enumerate the concept of forgiveness. Should it be granted seven times, Peter wanted to know, or should a sinner be forgiven as many as seventy times? In the shadow of the church steeples, Lloyd let Jesus answer the woman's question: "Seventy times seven," he said.”

HeroinDrug AddictionOpioid Abuse
Book:Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
Create image

“the Times says there's a heroin epidemic, Malone thinks, which is only an epidemic of course because now white people are dying. Whites started to get opium-based pills from their physicians: oxycodone, vicodin... But, it was expensive and doctors were reluctant to prescribe too much for exactly the fear of addiction. So the white folks went to the open market and the pills became a street drug. It was all very nice and civilized until the Sinoloa cartel down in Mexico made a corporate decision that it could undersell the big American pharmaceutical companies by raising production of its heroin thereby reducing price. As an incentive, they also increased its potency. The addicted white Americans found that Mexican ... heroin was cheaper and stronger than the pills, and started shooting it into their veins and overdosing. Malone literally saw it happening. He and his team busted more bridge-and-tunnel junkies, suburban housewives and upper Eastside madonnas than they could count....”

DrugsHeroinOpioidsOpioid Abuse
Book:The Force
Create image

“In a windowless nook of a downtown Roanoke funeral parlor, not far from where Tess once roamed the streets, Patricia caressed the back of the scar, as if cupping a baby's head, and told her poet goodbye. It was January 2, Tess's birthday. She would have been twenty-nine. Patricia tucked the treasures of her daughter's life inside the vest--a picture of her boy and one of his cotton onesies that was Tess's favorite, some strands of Koda's hair, and a sand dollar.”

DeathFamilyOpioid Abuse
Book:Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
Create image

“I didn't know at the time that it was common for people to use prescription drugs to cope with PTSD. I didn't know that the more opioids someone takes, the more sensitive they become to pain, making the opioids less effective. I didn't know that the number of veterans addicted to their prescribed meds had tripled that year. I didn't know there was an epidemic, not just at our hospital but country-wide, and it was just reaching its peak. The thing is, it wasn't my job to know.”

Opioid AbuseOpioid DependenceOpioid AddictionOpioid CrisisOpioid EpidemicPrescribed Opioid AbusePtsd And Opioids
Book:Alive Day: A Memoir
Create image