Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...
Share Embed Flag
Download ePaper

Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ... Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

library.whnlive.com
from library.whnlive.com More from this publisher
12.07.2015 Views

Dr. Eddy. Well, physicians, usually physicians are not all thatfamiliar with new products. I think there should be some reasonabledelay in order to familiarize them with the substitutes. As I saidearlier, we banned heroin from the medical practice without too muchresistance, partly because we kept morphine, which in many instanceswas advantafjeous over heroin and heroin was not all that popular inthe United States. When the attempt was made to ban heroin in GreatBritain there was a tremendous furor and the Home Office eventuallywithdrew the ban and heroin is still permissible in Great Britain.If we were to attempt to ban, by congressional action, the use ofmorphine in clinical medicine I think there would very justifiably bea fjood deal of resistance on the part of physicians. The natural opiatesare what they are accustomed to and you would have to give them anopDortunity to become accustomed to things to be used alternatively.Mr. WkvOtxs. I have difficulty in reconciling your statement thatmedical resistance would be iustified in view of your earlier statement,there are adequate substitutes for morphine now existing.Dr. Eddy. Well, those substitutes are there, but not all of the physiciansin the country are aware of them and familiar with their use.They would say: "Well, what am I going to do for John Jones forwhom I must have morphine in order to get him through this operationor to handle his broken leg or something else. I don't know anythingabout this compound. I have never heard of it." You have got togive him an opportunity to familiarize himself, carry on some sort ofcampaign to get them to accept the alternative.I was very active, took a very great interest in the introduction ofpentazocine. It was quite slow m coming on the market for reasons Idon't need to go into. I was particularly interested because it appearedto be completely free of physical dependence factors, and it is reasonablyso. We did not expect any abuse of it at all. There has been avery small amount of abuse because a few people who have abusedother drugs have found the reactions of it pleasant to them and havegone on to use excessive amounts, but the number is very small. Itdoes have antagonistic properties if given to a person already dependenton morphine. It was likely the withdrawal phenomena would beprecipitated and would probably make him sick and probably veryangry with his doctor if the doctor w^as not aware of what was goingon. But the reaction to it has been exceedingly good. It is an agonistantagonistand physicians are accepting it, and I think we can getthem to accept it and other compounds of this sort to a sufficient extentso that medical practice would not suffer for lack of the opiates.But this takes a little time.Mr. Wtootns. I would like to ask two additional questions. Doctor.How would you describe the ease of manufacturing the existing substitutesfor morphine? That question is really aimed at whether or notwe can expect a lot of backyard or backroom clandestine laboratoriesturninir out the substitutes if the United States were to prohibit theuse of morphine.Dr. Eddy. Well, none of the synthetics are all that easy to produce.It would require a very skilled, very well-equipped technical chemicallaboratory to produce them. It isn't anything like the ease with whichheroin is obtained from morphine. You can cook up hei-oin in your

37kitchen from morpliine if you have a morphine supply. You can extractmorphine from opium without very much difficulty.Mr. Wiggins. Is it as easy as manufacturing LSD or more difficult?Dr. Eddy. Well, given a supply of lysergic acid for the productionof LSD, the development of the synthetics in place of the natural opiateswould be much more difficult.Mr. Wiggins. What would be the price for synthetics versus price ofmorphine?Dr. Eddy. Presently the price to the patient is practically the sameper dose for all the compounds we have been considering. We have alreadylooked into that.Mr. Wiggins. Thank you, Doctor.Chairman Pepper. Mr. Steiger ?Mr. Steiger. I have no questions.Chaii-man Pepper. Mr. Winn ?Mr. Winn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.Doctor, you have a statement here which says you believe drug detoxificationhas no effect on a person's craving for drugs. You spoke towhat you re-that a minute ago, and this same statement says that isferred to as the lesson of Lexington. Could you speak to that a littlebit more?Dr. Eddy. Well, perhaps I can answer your question this way : Sofar as we know, putting a patient through cold turkey, which meanswithdrawing from opiate without any treatment at all, does not deterhim from relapse, relapse to the use of opiate once he is free of thetreatment as against treating him as humanely as possible. So there isno point—there is no justification—for cold turkey treatment of adrug-dependent person.]\Ir. Winn. What you are saying, which you referred to a little whileago, is that there would be no difference in the psychic craving ?Dr. Eddy. That is right.Mr. Winn. And not a physiological craving ?Dr. Eddy. We can handle the physical dependence side of it withoutdifficulty, because we know how to take the person through withdrawalso he does not suffer, to all intents and purposes, take him throughwithdrawal with reasonable comfort.But that doesn't necessarily affect his remembrance of the effectsthat he got from the heroin he took or the oj^iate that he took previouslyor his desire to reexperience those effects. That is psychicdependence.Mr. Winn. Are you doing anything, or is anything being clone, tooffset this psychic dependency.Dr. Eddy. Yes; of course. Any treatment program should includepsychotherapy to try to help the man to understand and meet his problemsAvithout resort to drugs to convince him that the subjective effectswhich he obtained were not essential to him, that life without drugs ispossible and reasonable and more productive, more rewarding.Mr, Winn. Thank you very much, sir.Thank you, Mr. Chairman.Chairman Pepper. Doctor. I understand that in Britain, one way ofhandling heroin addiction is to authorize the prescription of herointo addicts. Would you recommend that course in this country ?

37kitchen from morpliine if you have a morphine supply. You can extractmorphine from opium without very much difficulty.Mr. Wiggins. Is it as easy as manufacturing LSD or more difficult?Dr. Eddy. Well, given a supply of lysergic acid for the productionof LSD, the development of the synthetics in place of the natural opiateswould be much more difficult.Mr. Wiggins. What would be the price for synthetics versus price ofmorphine?Dr. Eddy. Presently the price to the patient is practically the sameper dose for all the compounds we have been considering. We have alreadylooked into that.Mr. Wiggins. Thank you, Doctor.Chairman Pepper. Mr. Steiger ?Mr. Steiger. I have no questions.Chaii-man Pepper. Mr. Winn ?Mr. Winn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.Doctor, you have a statement here which says you believe drug detoxificationhas no effect on a person's craving for drugs. You spoke towhat you re-that a minute ago, <strong>and</strong> this same statement says that isferred to as the lesson of Lexington. Could you speak to that a littlebit more?Dr. Eddy. Well, perhaps I can answer your question this way : Sofar as we know, putting a patient through cold turkey, which meanswithdrawing from opiate without any <strong>treatment</strong> at all, does not deterhim from relapse, relapse to the use of opiate once he is free of the<strong>treatment</strong> as against treating him as humanely as possible. So there isno point—there is no justification—for cold turkey <strong>treatment</strong> of adrug-dependent person.]\Ir. Winn. What you are saying, which you referred to a little whileago, is that there would be no difference in the psychic craving ?Dr. Eddy. That is right.Mr. Winn. And not a physiological craving ?Dr. Eddy. We can h<strong>and</strong>le the physical dependence side of it withoutdifficulty, because we know how to take the person through withdrawalso he does not suffer, to all intents <strong>and</strong> purposes, take him throughwithdrawal with reasonable comfort.But that doesn't necessarily affect his remembrance of the effectsthat he got from the heroin he took or the oj^iate that he took previouslyor his desire to reexperience those effects. That is psychicdependence.Mr. Winn. Are you doing anything, or is anything being clone, tooffset this psychic dependency.Dr. Eddy. Yes; of course. Any <strong>treatment</strong> program should includepsychotherapy to try to help the man to underst<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> meet his problemsAvithout resort to drugs to convince him that the subjective effectswhich he obtained were not essential to him, that life without drugs ispossible <strong>and</strong> reasonable <strong>and</strong> more productive, more rewarding.Mr, Winn. Thank you very much, sir.Thank you, Mr. Chairman.Chairman Pepper. Doctor. I underst<strong>and</strong> that in Britain, one way ofh<strong>and</strong>ling heroin addiction is to authorize the prescription of herointo addicts. Would you recommend that course in this country ?

logo

products

Resources

Company

Terms of service
Privacy policy
Cookie policy
Cookie settings
Imprint
Change language
Made with love in Switzerland
© 2024 Yumpu.com all rights reserved

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!