Are We Ignoring a Pill That Could Nearly Wipe Out the Opioid Crisis?

"NBC Nightly News" just ran a story Sunday night, July 1, that made my hair stand on end.

There is a drug called Buprenorphine that is cheap (about 86 cents to $1.32 per daily pill) and has been around since the 1980s — and it has been helping and even curing opioid addiction in France.

One of their top docs said it is having amazing results on about 80 percent of the addicts being treated. They even interviewed one of the cured victims who now has a new life and a job after 20 years of total despair. (Now, I sometimes bash NBC but this was an eye-opening piece.)

So why are we not using this in the U.S.? The NBC doc said it was because in many states the insurance companies will not pay for it. And because the Federal Government will not let physicians use the drug (which is a less addictive type opioid) unless they have specialized extra training, so most docs are banned from giving it.

In other words, most American physicians can prescribe the opioids that addict people but cannot prescribe a drug that might cure them.

The light bulb in France went off years ago and the authorities there approved all doctors to prescribe it.

I used the word “insane” and I mean it.

We spend billions fighting this scourge and millions of Americans are suffering and many even dying each day. So how can we ignore this potential savior drug? Could there be some influential lobbying groups making so much treatment money they don’t really want a simple cure…?

The nation must take action. If we could only get this story to President Trump or if some leaders in the Senate and/or the House would form a committee to investigate, we might accomplish a major breakthrough. Obviously our health experts would have to evaluate a new program but that should not take long.

So, everyone, please contact/swamp the White House, your local Senator and/or your Congressman. We need to start a tsunami.

Scottish-born Iain Calder was Editor in Chief and President of the National Enquirer for more than 20 years. He saw the weekly circulation surge from about 700,00 to nearly 5 million at its peak – with over 20 million readers. Magazines edited by Calder have sold a total of over 4 billion copies. He has no connection with the present day Enquirer, which was bought by new owners not long after he left the company in 2000. Calder has been interviewed by the likes of Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes; Ted Koppel, Nightline; Katie Couric, NBC; and Geraldo Rivera and featured in newspapers and magazines around the world including The New York Times, the Times of London, Time and Newsweek magazines. He has lectured at major universities and once at the Reagan Library, where he had lunch with Nancy Reagan. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.