Walmart Will Implement New Opioid Prescription Limits By End Of Summer

Oh boy, here we go. The spreading madness in response to the so-called "Opiate Epidemic" (actually a heroin and Fentanyl overdose crisis) has found it's way to the corporate world. In a great display of virtue signalling Walmart has decided they know better than doctors what pain patients may or may not need. Among their forthcoming policies is limits on the daily dosage they will fill prescriptions for.

It will also limit a day's total dose to no more than the equivalent of 50 morphine milligrams.

www.npr.org...

I know people who take 5x that amount daily and have maintained some semblance of a life for years. Such arbitrary rules will not just inconvenience people but force people to find another pharmacy (many places in the US Walmart is the only place reasonably close) or worse yet drive people to finding pain relief through illegal sources and become heroin junkies.

Honestly I think this is the secret goal behind the governments pushing for tighter controls as the black market profits are just too lucrative for them. We have waged war to control the poppy fields in Afghanistan for 16 years so don't think that it's just a crazy conspiracy theory. Did the Taliban commit 9/11? No. You don't invade a country just to arrest and try 1 person, that's ridiculous. You know there had to be another hidden agenda at work.

Over the next 60 days, the fourth-largest pharmacy chain will cap acute painkiller supplies to cover a maximum of seven days.

I hope you don't have pain lasting longer than a week. This will force patients to cough up 4 co-pays a month instead just 1, not to mention the physical difficulty some have just getting to the pharmacy in the first place.

So the war on Opiates marches on crushing people who are already suffering under unrealistic and costly rules. Consider how many people get their prescriptions filled at Walmart; could it be 20% of the US population? Seems a reasonable guess to me so this will push those former customers to find another pharmacy. Guess what - CVS has already begun similar programs.

Even more problematic is that each store is only allowed to order a certain number of pills per month. They have "run out" before leaving patients unable to fill prescriptions but this will increase that number drastically; making it inevitable that many patients will be left hanging dry, unable to fill a medically necessary prescription.

This is unfair and very dangerous. Innocent people by the millions will suffer, more will overdose seeking releif through illegal drugs such as heroin and end up dead from Mexican and Chinese Fentanyl used to cut the product making it stronger. What other medical patients are being put through this kind of wringer? Are they going to cut heart patients medicines or insulin for diabetics? No, only pain patients because it's all in their head and the popular idea that they can just "suck it up" is somehow a viable option.

Many US Army and Marine vets are among those in the crosshairs.
Watch the suicide rate skyrocket even higher.
It's a given.

100 years ago people in pain could go to their corner store and buy opium, coc aine and other drugs for just a few dollars. There was no drug crisis back then. All this stress and social chaos is for the sake of pharmaceutical company profits. People are being ruined by corporate rule that values money more than human life or it's quality.

Evil, plain and simple.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

I have a friend that has fibromyalgia. She went to the ER one night, and they gave her an industrial strength, don't take one mg more than the recommended dosage painkiller. She didn't even blink. They finally had her on such a high dosage that she should have been passed out or dead and she was sitting there holding a normal conversation with the nurses.

Here in the Uk you get whatever your Dr says you should have and pretty much every doc can prescribe pretty much everything (extra courses for certain drugs like high strength opiates) from your local pharmacy with rarer stuff only available from the hospitals own pharmacy.

Getting co-codamol tablets upto a certain strength is just a walk in and ask from behind the counter and job done.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Can't they just score their drugs from another pharmacy?

Pretty sure they can even do it online these days with a legitimate prescription... have their legal heroin delivered right to their door.

Personally, I don't think this policy by Walmart will have much of an impact, on either prescription drug abuse or genuine patients.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The people who will suffer most are those with chronic, intractable pain. There are some conditions for which there is no surgery and no alternative to opiate derivative medications. I have had a swollen spinal cord for 10 years and after surgery to remove bone from the back of my cervical vertebrae the swelling was supposed to go down. It didn't. The doctors didn't believe I was in pain until I had dropped from 150 lbs. to 125 over 3 months. I was not even slightly overweight. That was my summer from hell.

I have dozens of horror stories I could tell about pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions due to personal bias, doctors abdicating responsibility while on vacation leaving no one able to help you, lost faxes leading to days of waiting for a prescription, pharmacists calling the police because you aren't dressed well enough and they suspect you're forging prescriptions when had they looked at their electronic records they would see I was never a problem customer. It's ridiculous and most of it is due to public perception and the stigma attached to it.

Disability sucks but to feel distrusted and unwelcome by doctors, nurses and pharmacists is just too much sometimes. These are the people who get paid very well to supposedly help you.

I think it’s stupid that Wal-Mart has the ability to be the final word on a doctors treatment. I feel for everyone who needs these drugs to have some semblance of a normal life, and I think it’s horrible how bad people who are prescribed opiates are stigmatized.

The war on drugs is really a war on the people of America, more so than any drug.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

This is ridiculous. I get my prescriptions through the VA and at one point I had to tell the doctor that I needed more than just a few days worth. When my back goes out, I can barely move, I can't get up and drive 60 miles to the VA hospital, wait for 10 hours and then drive back 60 miles... I have to crawl just to go to the bathroom.

He gave me 120 flexiril and 90 vicadin...

Jaden

originally posted by: Maxatoria
Here in the Uk you get whatever your Dr says you should have and pretty much every doc can prescribe pretty much everything (extra courses for certain drugs like high strength opiates) from your local pharmacy with rarer stuff only available from the hospitals own pharmacy.

Getting co-codamol tablets upto a certain strength is just a walk in and ask from behind the counter and job done.

In the US most doctors can't prescribe anything stronger than percocet. They have to be specially licensed as pain specialists or physical therapists. Some have waiting lists of 3 or 4 months just to get a exam. Meanwhile all your doctor can do is give you a band aid while you basically bleed to death.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Very well put together thread. The opioid crisis in America, especially the east coast is just so damn sad. And pointless. Where was this crisis at the turn of the century? May I point out that while I and others are vocal concerning wars for oil and pipelines toward that end, I cant help but wonder about how BigPharma always had to sit on the sidelines of wars.

Finally wanting their piece, they contacted their local Pentagon to see what could be done in Afghanistan and their ubiquitous poppies...

fast forward to 2018, and it becomes evident.

my dad just had foot surgury they(wallmart) gave him 50 oxy pills ,he didnt even want them and has been taking over the counter instead.they did include some new like gel thingy that when your done with the prescription you can put in the bottle fill with water and it supposedly neutralizes the pills in some way (i had asked if he could bring them back to be disposed of ) so it seems that they are at least trying to take some measures to combat opiod addiction

edit link to the new gel stuff fortune.com...

Walmart, (wmt, -3.15%) the fourth largest U.S. pharmacy operator, has unveiled a tool it thinks can help dent the country’s raging opioid crisis: a packet that makes leftover medication unusable and easier to throw out. The company said on Wednesday that the solution is called “DisposeRx” and consists of a packet with ingredients that, when combined with warm water and emptied into a pill bottle, neutralize leftover medications so they can be disposed of without worry. The packets are free of charge and available at 4,700 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores with pharmacies.

As someone that's been on opiate pain killers for almost a decade this whole war on opiates is only hurting those that need this medicine to have any semblance of a quality life. I've been going to the same Dr for my prescriptions for over 3 years and just last week was informed I would need to find another pain management Dr. I've tried every other available option to try and ease my pain as I'm sure many others have also. Lets see, I've tried all forms of medical marijuana, nerve blocks, physical therapy, electro therapy, every new and old type of injection known to western medicine etc. and nothing except opiate pain meds have even put a dent in my pain. I've had to have DNA testing done to prove that I am not getting high off the high dosage I am currently on and that my body metabolizes these meds at a fast rate. Yet next week I'll be forced to pee in a cup, give my detailed history of all the multiple surgeries, accidents aches and pains etc and made to feel like all of this is my head. I fear the next step will be outlawing these helpful meds and a mass increase in suicide as most can't and won't live with this pain.....if you can call it living. Sorry just venting

a reply to: slatesteam

The rise in opiate use can be traced directly back to the number of returning vets from Afghanistan and Iraq, many with missing limbs or severe spinal damage. It's a sad situation and we can't seem to stop sending our men and women off in to harm's way over corporate profits.

this sucks but how is it any worse than insurance having the final word on what you can get.
many times i have been prescribed something and the insurance rejected it but said they would cover something else.

wal mart has really turned a corner.

i used to get 90 fentanyl suckers a month @ 800 micrograms each and i got them filled wal mart

originally posted by: RalagaNarHallas
my dad just had foot surgury they(wallmart) gave him 50 oxy pills ,he didnt even want them and has been taking over the counter instead.

That's the problem I've got with the whole healthcare system and their whole mentality of how they prescribe drugs.

I went to the hospital a few years ago after a work place accident with two broken toes. I swear to god, they kept offering me potent opiods at least 7 or 8 times in the hour and half I was their... No matter how much I told them it was just 2 broken toes and I didn't want their stupid drugs, they just wouldn't quit trying to stuff them down my throat!

Its like, if you have the slightest physical inconvenience, their almost foaming at the mouth with excitement at the very thought of turning you into an opiod addict.. But, go to the doctor and ask for a few valium, because your totally on edge, haven't slept for a week straight and feel like your about to have a heart attack, due to a debilitating anxiety disorder... Then they'll just accuse you of being a doctor shopping drug addict and kick you out.

The whole healthcare system are filled with a bunch of feeble minded morons... A middle class soccer mum could walk into the doctor with a broken finger nail and she'd walk out with a 3 month prescription of vicodin... But, a financially struggling single white male claiming he's dangerously on the edge, just gets accused of being a pathetic lowlife drug addict, who's just trying to scam a cheap high.

F# them!

Well then advocacy groups and other people need to get off their butts and sue. Clearly this is a class-action offense

a reply to: Asktheanimals

It's hard for me to believe so many overdoses are caused by legal prescriptions. Maybe it's true or maybe they only say that when they wake up in the ER to cover their own asses. More likely the pills were obtained illegally. I really think many people OD and die because they want to. Their life seems so crappy it's why they got into risky drug behavior in the first place. There is a kind of spiritual malaise that has swept across America. They start with pot and go straight to heroin. Unthinkable until recently.

a reply to: toms54

I have to agree, most of the opiate overdoses are from

A) Illegally obtained meds
B) Illegal and illicit drugs i.e. Heroin
C) And the least likely reason is accidental overdose on their own prescription or child getting a adults unsecured prescription.

Most of this so call opiate epidemic is from heroin and fentanyl overdoses these are not prescribed the dealers are now cutting their heroin with cheap Chinese fentanyl. Fentanyl is no joke and is the only pain medication I will never take again. I had a pain Management Dr take me off of my Oxy and put me on a fentanyl patch. I didn't know the warning signs of a overdose as it had never happened to me or anyone close to me but that freaking patch damn near killed me. Was not warned by the Dr that I wasn't able to take a hot/warm shower with the patch on....well heat and a transdermal patch do not mix. Was the first and last time that happened as I changed Drs and will never put one of those patches on my body.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

In a great display of virtue signalling Walmart has decided they know better than doctors what pain patients may or may not need. Among their forthcoming policies is limits on the daily dosage they will fill prescriptions for.

They are a private company and can set whatever policy they so choose.

blah blah blah......while all the neighborhood junkies walk past the pharmacy to the seeds aisle and buy all the poppy seeds, grow them and wander around the woods like jackasses. (yes this happens more and more)

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Oh my god, that can't be real! They are going to punish the law abiding citizens for this crap? Oh man, we need to make some changes, in the way we think, the way we live, we gotta change the way we eat... I want to see at least one ats member in each state run for some kind of political office. Mayor, Senator, Governor, whatever you think fits your abilities and lifestyle the best. Just use common sense, that should be enough to defeat this nonsense.