What the media gets wrong about opioids

[jesse_the_k]

Columbia Journalism Review is a trade magazine for journalists. Maia Szalavitz's article on "What the media gets wrong about opioids" opened my eyes wide—

The “relatable” story journalists and editors tend to seek—of a good girl or guy (usually, in this crisis, white) gone bad because pharma greed led to overprescribing—does not accurately characterize the most common story of opioid addiction. Most opioid patients never get addicted and most people who do get addicted didn’t start their opioid addiction with a doctor’s prescription. The result of this skewed public conversation around opioids has been policies focused relentlessly on cutting prescriptions, without regard for providing alternative treatment for either pain or addiction

[… snip …]

It’s important for journalists to understand that criminalization is not some sort of natural fact, and laws are not necessarily made for rational reasons. Our system does not reflect the relative risks of various drugs; legal ones are among the most harmful in terms of their pharmacological effects. With the exception of the legislation that resulted in the creation and maintenance of the FDA, our drug laws were actually born in a series of racist panics that had nothing to do with the relative harms of actual substances.

https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_health_care_fight/what-the-media-gets-wrong-about-opioids.php

Comments

[bibliofile]

I know so many people who manage their pain with opioids, among other things. And who have these conversations with their providers. Thank you for this link.

[jesse_the_k]

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