Does the UK have an opioid problem?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Prescriptions for opioid painkillers have increased by 60 per cent in the UK during the last decade, and the number of codeine-related deaths in England and Wales has more than doubled.
The government is now planning to put prominent warnings about the dangers of addiction on the packaging of opioid medicines, to protect people from 'the darker side of painkillers' - as Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock put it.
This is an effort to avoid the situation in the United States where 130 people die every day from opioid-related drug overdoses, which has prompted President Donald Trump to declare a national health emergency.
But are we really on the precipice of our own epidemic?
David Aaronovitch asks how the situation got so out of control in the USA and whether the UK should do more to regulate painkillers containing opioids.
CONTRIBUTORS
Sam Quinones, journalist and author of 'Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic'.
Dr Raeford Brown, former chair of the FDA's Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee
Dr Luke Mordecai, consultant anaesthetist at University College Hospital, with research focus on opiate use and complex pain
Professor Leslie Colvin, chair of pain medicine, University of Dundee
Dr Emily Finch, consultant addiction psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust
Producers: Serena Tarling & Richard Fenton-Smith Researcher: Kirsteen Knight
Details of organisations offering information and support with addiction are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline, or you can call for free at any time to hear recorded information on 08000 155 947.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:08.3 | Step inside and get briefed. |
| 0:10.8 | This week on whether the UK is at risk of following the US |
| 0:14.3 | and having an opioid crisis of its own. |
| 0:17.6 | But before we start, if you enjoy this podcast, |
| 0:20.2 | please, please tell a friend or write a review. |
| 0:23.2 | Thanks to Extractinal, Jaden J and YDHC, F-O-G-I-13 for your recent five-star ratings. |
| 0:31.0 | And now, on with this week's show. |
| 0:35.8 | People say, you know, this has only been recognized because it's a middle-class white problem. |
| 0:42.3 | And that's absolutely true, but I would also say this, this was hidden for many years because it was a middle-class white problem. |
| 0:51.3 | Because that class of people in our country was mortified beyond words. |
| 0:58.6 | That's American journalist Sam Cignonis talking about the opioid addiction crisis in the US, |
| 1:05.0 | where one person dies every 12 minutes due to opioid overdose. The problem is hidden no more. But are we in danger |
| 1:14.0 | of seeing something like it happen in this country? This week, the Secretary of State for Health |
| 1:19.7 | Matt Hancock said we must act now to protect people from the darker side to painkillers. |
| 1:25.7 | And although the situation here is barely comparable to the US, |
| 1:29.4 | Department of Health figures show prescriptions for opioid painkillers and England and Wales |
| 1:34.1 | have risen sharply over the past decade, from 14 million in 2008 to 23 million last year. |
| 1:42.5 | In this week's program, |
| 1:48.6 | I want to find out how the opioid problem in America got so out of control and whether we could be on the cusp of a similar crisis in the UK. |
| 1:54.7 | Step inside the briefing room to find out. |
... |
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