According to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 446,000 people have died from opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2018. Extrapolating and adding in 2019, where there were probably around 50,000 opioid overdose deaths, brings the Opioid Pandemic death toll in the United States since 1999 to 500,000.
Further, the Opioid Pandemic in the United States is consistently getting worse. In 1999 there were 8,000 opioid overdoses. In 2002 it spiked to 12,000 opioid overdoses. By 2009 the number of opioid overdoses exceeded 20,000, and by 2015 it jumped to 33,000, before hitting the 2017-2018 levels of 47,000 opioid overdose deaths per year.
Clearly, something is broken in the system if so many billions of dollars are being spent on opioid treatments, rehabs, and the drug war, and the overdose deaths just keep on climbing.
Notably, the FDA-approved opioid withdrawal/addiction treatment drug Methadone accounts for 70,000 of the total opioid deaths between 1999-2018, definitively showing that Methadone really is just another dangerous and deadly synthetic opioid. As discussed in a previous article on Kratom Cafe, it is nonsensical that Methadone would be given to people who need to break an opioid addiction, since Methadone just exarcebates the addiction, with many subjective reports saying that Methadone addiction is stronger than Heroin addiction, and ultimately lots of Methadone patients die apparently.
This brings up the point, why not give Kratom to patients who have opioid addiction and withdrawal issues? Indeed, not only are there numerous subjective reports that Kratom can be used to break even the strongest synthetic opioid and opiate addictions, but also, there is scientific proof, with a scientific paper recently declaring that Kratom is the perfect novel pharmacotherapeutic intervention for ending opioid addiction and the Opioid Pandemic in general since it relieves opioid withdrawal symptoms while not causing a serious addiction of its own.
Zooming out, Kratom can even be used for chronic pain, and could be prescribed to chronic pain patients instead of synthetic opioids and opiates. Indeed, there are numerous subjective reports of Kratom alleviating the pain from even the most serious chronic pain conditions.
In-fact, not only does Kratom alleviate even serious chronic pain, but Kratom tolerance does not max out like with synthetic opioids and opiates, meaning Kratom’s pain relieving effects work long term, whereas synthetic opioids and opiates eventually stop providing pain relief no matter how much you take.
Even more importantly, synthetic opioids and opiates have killed 500,000 people in the United States since 1999. Meanwhile, Kratom has zero scientifically proven deaths in history.
Perhaps one day the world will get more logical and Kratom will become the official treatment for managing chronic pain and opioid dependence, and such a policy would probably save tens of thousands of lives per year in the United States. In the meantime, the FDA continues to be anti-Kratom despite the overwhelming evidence, just because the FDA gets paid over a billion dollars per year by Big Pharma, and therefore does whatever Big Pharma wants.
Indeed, if Kratom replaced the synthetic opioid and opiate industry it would cost Big Pharma tens of billions of dollars per year, and that is the exact reason it is not happening. In other words, money is being chosen over lives.