Abstract
There was once a large hegemonic empire whose people possessed a great history. They had waged wars of conquest and defeated many enemies that threatened their way of life. Despite this, they verged on the declaration of a state of emergency. Over the past decade or so it was perceived that the addiction abuse rates of a certain drug had grown exponentially after a previous period of supposed tranquility when laws were passed banning the substance.
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Notes
- 1.
The journalist and social commentator G. K. Chesterton argued in The Medical Mistake, What’s Wrong with the World (London, 1910) that healthcare delivery should only be used for restoring the normal human body. Of course, the invention of public health and its mission to eradicate the individual case in the name of social progress, which began during the Progressive Era and elevated to new heights during the New Deal, continues to be debated as the opioid crisis unfolds. How the state reacts to issues such as these begs the continued question of, can medical problems ever be truly solved by altering the social order or controlling the chemistry? This seems wholly incompatible with one in which people possess moral relationships.
- 2.
It is the opinion of these authors that the topics of measurement of use might be an interesting line of questioning. For instance, is it possible that since numbers of those addicted today looks inflated simply because statistics simply do not exist for past periods in the history of the United States?
- 3.
Martin Freund (1863–1920) and Edmund Speyer (1878–1942) developed a close working relationship as they worked with Thebaine. Freund was eulogized by Speyer after his death in 1920. Once the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s, Speyer was targeted and banned from teaching because of his Jewish faith. He died in a ghetto in 1942 due to a “weakness of heart.”
- 4.
Ephedrine in its natural form has a long history. For instance, in traditional Chinese medicine, má huáng has been used as a treatment for asthma and bronchitis for centuries.
- 5.
A Schedule II translated to a category of drugs considered to have a strong potential for abuse or addiction, but that have legitimate medical use. Among the substances so classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency are morphine, cocaine, pentobarbital, oxycodone, and methadone. Yet, now, even the present crisis brings into question what legitimate medical use will mean into the future.
- 6.
Arthur Sackler (1913–1987) had a long career that included along with his brothers, the publishing of over 140 research papers particularly pertaining to the mental illness. He took a job at the William Douglas MacAdams Advertising Agency in order to finance his medical education. Eventually, he worked his way up to become the principal owner. In 1958, he founded the Laboratories for Therapeutic Research, a nonprofit basic research center at the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy of Long Island University, and served as its director until 1983. With an art history background, he travelled the world acquiring antiques (particularly Chinese Art) that would become part of major collections at museums including the Met in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
- 7.
Matthew Weiner’s AMC Series Mad Men (2007–2015) portrayed the raucous world of advertising in the 1950s and 1960s. See, http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-original-resonant-existentially-brilliant-mad-men-finale (accessed October 21, 2017).
- 8.
Several authors displaying credentials of high journalistic integrity have bitten into this notion that Sackler was a revolutionary advertiser. He was, but it should be noted that there were historical examples of medical journals touting products in professional journals fifty years before he came up with the idea. Perhaps Patrick Keefe of the New Yorker and Christopher Glazek of Esquire only perceive the recent past as the most relevant [11, 12].
- 9.
At the time of the publication of this volume, Purdue Pharma has been sued and severely penalized for its practices surrounding the development and marketing of Oxycontin, which includes jail time for some of the executives involved in the sale of the drug. For instance, as recently as January 2017 the city of Everett, Washington sued Purdue based on increased costs for the city from the use of Oxycontin. They also contended that the firm did not intervene when they noted abnormal patterns of sale of their product, per the agreement in the 2007. The allegations include not following legal agreements to track suspicious excess ordering or potential illegal usage. False clinics were uncovered by unscrupulous doctors using homeless individuals as ‘patients’ to purchase Oxycontin, who then in turn would sell them to the citizens of Everett was the factual basis of the suit. The illegal sale of the drug out of legal pharmacies based in Los Angeles with distributions points in Everett is also part of the larger story. Purdue did not contact the DEA for years despite knowing of the practice and the overuse and sale of their product. The suit is asking for a yet to be determined reimbursement related to costs of policing, housing, health care, rehabilitation, criminal justice system, park and recreations department, as well as to the loss of life or compromised quality of life of the citizens of the city directly.
- 10.
In 2010, in response to lawsuits and bad press, Purdue’s laboratories rolled out a new form of OxyContin called OxyNeo. This drug was not crushable and even when liquid was added it would turn into an insoluble glob. Already abusers have begun to turn to other combinations of drugs in response. Other companies like Endo and Janssen have developed their own versions of abuse-deterrent products. Time will tell how this impacts the current opioid crisis. Ironically, the latter was founded by Paul Janssen whose company was the first to synthesize fentanyl in 1959, which was used as a general anesthetic under the trade name Sublimaze in the 1960s. Now, it has become one of the most powerful opioids in America. For more discussion of this topic, see Foreman J (2014) A Nation in Pain: healing Our Biggest Health Problem. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 172–174.
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Campbell, J.N., Rooney, S.M. (2018). Epilogue: Opioid Heterotopias. In: A Time-Release History of the Opioid Epidemic. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91788-7_4
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