A group of state officials and health advocates are petitioning the
Food and Drug Administration to ban the production of high-dose
opioid medications, saying that the pills when taken as directed
are a daily dose of 90 milligrams of morphine.

The petition was signed by leaders of the Association of State
and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), reported ABC News.

The ASTHO is national nonprofit organization representing public
health agencies in the United States and over 100,000 public
health professionals these agencies employ. ASTHO members,
the chief health officials of these jurisdictions, formulate and
influence sound public health policy and work to guide statebased
public health practice.

Parham Jaberi, MD, MPH, Assistant Secretary for Public Health
in the Louisiana Department of Health, is listed for the Louisiana
representative.

The petition was also signed by Physicians for Responsible
Opioid Prescribing, the National Safety Council and the American
College of Medical Toxicology. Dr. Andrew Kolodny, physician
advocate for opioid reform, said, “The existence of these
products implies that they’re safe. They’re not,” said Kolodny,
founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an
outspoken advocate for opioid reform.

More than 15,000 people died from overdoses involving
prescription opioids in 2015. Various sources report that 80
percent of those addicted to illegal opioids became hooked
through a legal prescription

In June Governor Edwards signed measures to help curb the
opioid crisis in Louisiana, where more prescriptions are written
each year than there are residents in the state. Louisiana ranks
#7 in the states with opioid problems.

Louisiana lawmakers passed legislation this year to help deal
with the problems. Act 76 forced limitations on prescribers of
opioids. For acute pain conditions, prescriptions are limited to a
seven-day supply.

Act 76 also restricted prescriptions to minors. “… a medical
practitioner shall not issue a prescription for an opioid to a minor
for more than a seven-day supply at any time and shall discuss
with a parent, tutor, or guardian of the minor the risks associated
with opioid use and the reasons why the prescription is
necessary.”

Another new law, Act 82 set up a monitoring program and
requirements and continuing education requirements. Physicians
must review the patient’s record in the Prescription Monitoring
Program prior to initially prescribing opioids.

In House Concurrent Resolution 21, lawmakers urged health
officials to help undo the attitude changes from drug company
marketing that began in 1996, branding pain as a “5th vital sign”
and a problem to be medicated aggressively.

Authors of the Resolution point out that the Veterans Health
Administration, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of
Healthcare Organizations, and the Federation of State Medical
Boards all embraced the marketing, now resulting in an epidemic
of 180 thousand deaths from overdose, from 1999 to 2015, and a
quadrupling of prescriptions, according to the CDC.