“Addiction- a community problem” by Umar Farooq, M.D.

To read in Courier Times’s, please click here

While there is a back and forth by many townships looking to sue drug companies and impose taxes on narcotics, no one is focusing on the millions affected that need treatment.

Suing pharmaceutical companies and decreasing the production of narcotics by 25 percent will help prevent new users but definitely will not help people already addicted to the narcotic pain medications; in fact, it will do quite the opposite. They will resort to other more dangerous and cheaper means to fulfill their addictions, like heroin, which is not only cheaper but more readily available.

In fact, it’s estimated that 75 percent of heroin users started off on pain medications.

People who are addicted to opioids seriously need help.

Increasing the price of the pills or making them harder to get might decrease the number of new addicts, but what about the over 2 million people who have prescription opioid use disorders? These regulations do not help them at all. This strategy will force them to turn to other means to fulfill their addictions. According to a recent survey, more and more of today’s opioid addicts are shifting from prescription narcotics to heroin.

We are starting a Home Town Community Project, which involves the community getting together and working together to spread awareness of the matter. Addiction is a disease and we need to treat it as a disease. Addicts need to know that if they need help, we are ready to help them.

We have a multidisciplinary approach and have collaborated with doctors across America to find the most effective way to overcome this disease. The solution involves a psychosocial component that gives them support through the whole process as well as a therapeutic component that helps them cope with cravings and withdrawals. But that’s not all.

Umar Farooq, M.D., CMD,

Chairman RECAP & Arise USA PAC

Knights Medical Associates

Bensalem