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The Ohio Governor draws a line in the sand, limiting opioid prescriptions to just seven days.
Governor John Kasich has recently set into place new regulations that limit a patients exposure to opioid medication to a seven-day treatment. It’s one of many efforts to quell the state’s drug crisis and stop addiction dead in its tracks. The seven-day regulation is meant to throw a lasso around the medical industrial complex, whose hands are pretty red with guilt when it comes to the current epidemic of overdose and addiction.
In a sobering statistic, it was concluded that 74 percent of those who have died of a drug overdose in 2015 had, at one point, received a legal prescription for opioids.
Prescription medication is often a gateway to addiction. Even at its most benign of intentions, legal opioid use can be a fairly slippery slope. It isn’t uncommon for patients to fall into addiction following an injury or a surgical procedure. And once the problem becomes evident and medical professionals cut off access to habit forming medication, people often turn to street drugs like heroin to fill that pill shaped void and fend off the shakes.
These new rules will help us curb opioid addiction without denying access to those who need these medications. 2/
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) August 30, 2017
Governor Kasich expressed clear exceptions for the regulation.
When it comes to patients suffering from cancer, end of life care, or for medication assisted treatment for addiction, the use of opioids beyond a seven-day capacity is still on the table. The Ohio Medical Board backs the new ruling, agreeing that accountability on the part of trained professionals will only help to curb the frightening rate of opioid abuse in the state. In a day and age where overdose deaths in Ohio exceed that of traffic fatalities, it’s at least a bit reassuring to see politicians and doctors able to rally together for a cause much bigger than party, policy, or procedure.
