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...in the letter, Abramowitz explained that, although ASHP is grateful for the action the Administration has taken to provide hospitals with necessary personal protective equipment and ventilators, they “will be rendered useless without an adequate supply of the medications…that must administered concomitantly with mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients…to ensure the successful use of this life-saving supportive care.”...Medications used in conjunction with ventilator include opioids, sedatives, and paralytics...This week, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced it will take additional steps to allow for the increased production of controlled substances used in COVID-19 care...READ MORE

Despite increased access to naloxone, many individuals in rural communities continue to face barriers to obtaining the medication…However, informed pharmacists can serve as an educational resource, even if their pharmacies do not have the medication in stock...Ongoing efforts to expand prescribing methods through the United States have helped to improve naloxone accessibility. In Georgia, specifically, a standing order decrees that any individual may obtain naloxone from a licensed pharmacy without a prescription. Despite the standing order, pharmacies have been slow to adopt stocking naloxone and dispensing the medication…READ MORE

The top 1% of opioid prescribers in the U.S. are responsible for 49% of all opioid doses and 27% of all prescriptions, according to a study that suggests efforts to combat overuse of prescription painkillers should concentrate on these heavy prescribers...“We did not know that opioid prescribing was so extraordinarily concentrated in the U.S., well beyond what we see for other medications,”...our study also showed that most U.S. physicians are now prescribing consistent with guidelines (Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” Humphreys said by email. “Taken together, these findings suggest that safer prescribing initiatives can be much more focused on the most prolific prescribers.”...READ MORE

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has only managed to curb the supply of methamphetamines by less than 1% of annual consumption, proof that it has been a bloody failure, his main political rival, the vice president, said...Thousands of suspected drug traffickers and users have been killed in the campaign that Duterte launched soon after he won election in 2016...Vice President Leni Robredo, who was elected separately to the president, and recently served a brief stint as the president’s drug “tsar”, said vast quantities of the highly addictive drug were available because seizures had barely dented the supply...despite the number of Filipinos killed and the budget spent, the volume of shabu supply curbed didn’t exceed 1%,” Robredo told a news conference, referring to methamphetamines...READ MORE

In the first study...suggested that obesity contributed significantly to incident long-term prescription opioid use...Joint pain, back pain, injury, and muscle/nerve pain were identified as the highest contributors to the excess use observed among adults with obesity...The second study...looked at the pain conditions underlying this increased likelihood of opioid prescriptions for individuals with higher BMIs...the risk of receiving prescription opioids increased progressively with BMI... Addressing the opioid crisis will require attention to underlying sources of demand for prescription opioids, including obesity, through its associations with pain...READ MORE

Opioid makers and distributors who proposed paying almost $50 billion to resolve U.S. lawsuits over the addictive drugs are drawing more support from states, including California and New York, as pressure mounts for a deal before a trial starts next month...But nearly two dozen states and most of the cities and counties suing to hold the industry responsible for the havoc and high costs of the opioid epidemic say the terms still aren’t good enough...READ MORE

Purdue has been identified as "Pharma Co. X," an unnamed opioid maker at the center of a federal kickback probe that netted a $145 million criminal and civil settlement...from Practice Fusion, a subsidiary of Allscripts Healthcare...According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Vermont, Practice Fusion admitted that it had solicited and received kickbacks from a major opioid company––allegedly Purdue, which shelled out roughly $1 million in payments––in exchange for using its electronic health record software to influence physician prescribing of opioid pain medications..."During the height of the opioid crisis, (Practice Fusion) took a million-dollar kickback to allow an opioid company to inject itself in the sacred doctor-patient relationship so that it could peddle even more of its highly addictive and dangerous opioids,” Christina Nolan, U.S. attorney for the District of Vermont, said in a statement...READ MORE

A Florida law restricting the quantity of opioids a doctor can prescribe for acute pain to three days’ worth may have led to overall reductions in opioids dispensed to patients in the state,..After the law was passed in July 2018, doctors wrote fewer and shorter prescriptions for opioids...“The policy was intended to reduce the quantity prescribed but it was not expected to decrease opioid use overall,” said study coauthor Dr. Juan Hincapie-Castillo of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy...“But fewer people were getting opioids. That means the law led not only to a reduction in the quantity dispensed, but also to a reduction in the initial decision to prescribe.”...READ MORE

Twenty one states have rejected an $18 billion settlement proposal from three major U.S. drug distributors to resolve lawsuits over their alleged role in the opioid crisis, but discussion are still active...More than 2,500 lawsuits have been brought nationwide by states, local and tribal governments over the toll the opioid crisis has taken on their communities...the states objected to a settlement offer sent to the companies’ law firms earlier this week, and were pushing for a larger payment...READ MORE

With federal prosecutors laying waste to Insys' executive team, one big domino was still left to fall: Founder and former CEO John Kapoor, who had a leading role in the drugmaker's opioid kickback scheme. Now, Kapoor will face a stiff prison sentence that sets the bar for executives in the opioid industry...A federal judge in Boston sentenced Kapoor...to five and a half years in prison for his role in a doctor kickback scheme to boost subscriptions of Subsys...READ MORE