Fentanyl: Pharmaceutical vs Illicitly Manufactured

Surges in opioid overdose rates have been driven primarily by fentanyl analogues, not prescribed opioids. The media, politicians, and even professional anti-opioid advocacy groups continue to muddy the waters with propaganda and deception. These fentanyl overdoses rarely involve pharmaceutical fentanyl. It’s the illegally manufactured and chemically manipulated analogues of fentanyl that have allowed its opioid agonism potency to become unmatched, even compared to fentanyl itself. Jeffrey Bettinger, PharmD, discusses. He is a pain management clinical pharmacist at the Saratoga Hospital Medical Group in upstate New York.

[sarak]

Because of the media, some patients are so afraid of Fentanyl that they ask the anesthesiologists not to use it for their surgeries.

[NanaMooney]

Yes thank you
I had fentanyl in my pain pump at one time personally didn’t care for it and I had to just slowly be weaned off of it. It’s sad how the chronic patients are being abused by the a.k.a. street fentanyl

[lockelamora]

Black market fentanyl is the problem, not prescribed fentanyl. I personally couldn't imagine letting go of the only thing that could get me through the day if I could get a prescription for an effective pain reliever. One could argue that if clean drugs were available to users, they wouldn't be dying from junk on the street. Then, you could also help the addicts find resources to fight addiction. Instead, we ignore them, punish real patients, and lock up the ones that get out of hand.