La vitalité
EQUAL
OPP RTU N ITY
KILLER
With the opioid epidemic crossing every socioeconomic line ever drawn, an expert breaks down what families need to know. here was a time when teaching kids about drugs was fairly straightforward. Nancy Reagan gave very succinct advice: “Just say no.” But today, when you’re as likely to get hooked on a legally dispensed substance as you are on something exchanged in a back-alley deal, the war on drugs has taken a complex turn. The only simple aspect is the number of bodies piling up because of it.
Pharmacy and teaches at the University of Florida and Wingate University. Her lesson plans are a far cry from what she learned in lecture halls, however. “I was part of a generation of pharmacists and physicians that were told opioids weren’t addictive if you were truly in pain,” she recalls.
And if you think opioids aren’t in your neighborhood, then you probably don’t know your neighbors very well.
That false information wasn’t limited to one classroom or one university. It was the message of the day, spread far and wide in what she calls a perfect storm of genuine misunderstanding and incredible greed. The result was millions of medical professionals who didn’t think twice about prescribing and filling prescriptions for drugs like hydrocodone and oxycodone.
Dr. Laura Happe, a pharmacist and expert in opioid addiction, understands the pervasiveness of the epidemic because it’s literally her life’s work. During her tenure as Humana’s chief pharmacy officer, she led the national health plan’s opiate task force. Currently, she edits the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty
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