When the “opioid crisis” is mentioned, most people think of heroin, prescription pills like oxycodone, or — more recently — the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Fewer people would think of novel opioids like tianeptine, although an incre…
Category: Medications
Practicing medicine without a license is illegal. Yet cannabis dispensaries are doing it.
I look forward to clinic days. I thoroughly enjoy meeting with patients, hearing how they’re doing, and helping them to feel better – even if, on occasion, the only thing I can do to help is to listen. Yesterday was a clinic day. In the middle of…
Cannabis card-mills have conflicts of interest
Two weeks ago, my piece, “Cannabinoids are medicine, but patients aren’t getting the care they need,” was published. Since that time, I’ve heard from quite a few physicians who admitted that they did not know card-mills existed or, if they …
My Klonopin withdrawal story
It was September 11, 2001. My dad had cheated on my mom again, the building that I worked in at that time had received an anonymous tip that we were a potential target for the terrorist attacks, and my mom, who needed a reprieve from my dad’s crap, was…
As COVID worsens, don’t forget about the opioid crisis
For the past seven months, an epidemic in our country has spiraled out of control, claiming thousands of lives that could have been saved. It has been met by an inadequate, meandering national response that has often lacked urgency. It has disrupted fa…
How can we improve the quality of medications?
Do you know what it’s like to sit in a meeting and learn that something you hold close as a fundamental principle is probably not as fundamentally true as you thought? That’s the way I felt earlier this week while attending a meeting on the quality of …
Many medical marijuana program websites are silent about possible risks [PODCAST]
“There are roughly 221 million people — including 48 million kids — in states where marijuana has been named a medicine. These include patients who suffer from depression and could see their symptoms worsen. Mothers who could give birth to babies…
Why is the government so scared of directly negotiating drug prices?
President Trump recently signed two executive orders directly related to prescription drug prices in the U.S. One order would allow the “reimportation” of prescription drugs from Canada. This longstanding idea would allow U.S. pharmacies an…
Many medical marijuana program websites are silent about possible risks
Click through North Dakota’s Division of Medical Marijuana website, past the addresses of every cannabis dispensary in the state, into the presentations and annual reports, and you’ll eventually come to a 32-slide presentation about the sta…
Patients in Sweden received fewer post-op opioids. Why is that?
When I was in Sweden, I heard this phrase several times: “There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad preparation.” They said this when we asked them what they did with their children in dead of winter. The proud parents made it very clear that no …
