Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids.

“Rene Markoff has spent the past several years wondering how she could have helped her daughter overcome her drug addiction. Her daughter, Emily, died of a heroin overdose in January 2013,” read a recent local report from Madison, Wisconsin.

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney explained his department responds to at least a dozen overdose calls per week. “It’s heartbreaking because we know what the impact is of the abuse of opiates, we know the pattern in talking to people of how they began using painkillers and it resulted in the use of heroin,” Channel 3000 quoted him as saying.

via Health and Human Services (https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/index.html)

Devastation Of Opioid Crisis

“Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. The misuse of and addiction to opioids—including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare,” DrugAbuse.gov reports. Also adding “prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year.

They explain how the epidemic developed in the United States, “In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequently led to widespread diversion and misuse of these medications before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive.”

Bridgewater Courier News explains how local counties in the US have begun legally lashing out against pharmaceutical companies over opioids. “On Dec. 20 [2018], Union County filed a lawsuit in Union County Superior Court against a myriad of pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors alleging that ‘each company played a critical role in a coordinated and fraudulent scheme to profit from the unlawful sales of opioid drugs,’ according to a news release.”

Other recent studies show a similar trend. In a West Virginia county, doctors received about 31 times the national average of direct marketing from pharmaceutical companies between 2013 and 2015. At the time the opioid epidemic was already taking lives in the area. The research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Network Open journal (Jama).

“What is clear based on our findings and earlier studies is drug companies have continued to market opioid products in areas already hard-hit by opioid overdose deaths,” stated Dr. Scott E Hadland one of the authors of the study.

Pain Relief Alternative

CBDMEDIC, a new company that has developed a series of products that are ‘FDA-registered OTC topical medications produced in a cGMP FDA registered and audited facility to ensure the highest quality control standards.” The recent passing of the Farm Bill during the previous session of Congress has brought further attention to their brand. CBDMEDIC details their work:

CBDMEDIC™ is the first and only family of topical medications that combines advanced science, FDA monographs (menthol and camphor) and CBD hemp extract Cannabis sativa L (THC-free and non-psychoactive) with the finest organic and natural ingredients. Our products are produced using advanced technology with a mission to provide fast, strong and long-lasting pain relief.

“Our CBD hemp extract is a non-psychoactive and THC-free extract known as Cannabis sativa L that is derived from the hemp plant. This will not get you high, and you will not fail a THC drug test,” CBDMEDIC continues on their website. The company also offers temporary pain relief products for athletes to go along with the ‘arthritis’ and ‘back & neck’ goods.