People in pain: Hurting patients caught in crossfire of drug war

MOSES LAKE — The rush to deal with the nation’s opioid crisis is making life much harder for people with chronic pain.

That was the message from many who attended the Opioid Summit held at the Moses Lake Civic Center on Friday and organized by Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse.

“You’re so in a hurry to solve this that people are dying,” said a woman who gave her name only as Danielle. “Pain clinics have been closed and patients are left without care.”

It was a sentiment echoed by several audience members — wounded veterans and those suffering from chronic, debilitating conditions are finding their dosages reduced or being tapered off, and physicians are now afraid to prescribe opiate pain relievers at all, all in the name of reducing addiction and fighting abuse.

“I have a hereditary disease that cannot be fixed, and my pain meds are being taken away. I have never abused them,” Danielle said, noting she has been taking opiates to deal with pain for 10 years.

She said that her dosage being reduced, she will likely not be able function because the pain for a portion of the month.

“You guys are creating a whole new crisis,” Danielle said. “People in chronic pain have to have these meds to function.”

“We’re trying to find a successful balance,” said Chris Baumgartner, the drug systems director with the Washington State Department of Health.

Baumgartner said the state’s rules don’t tell any doctors to reduce pain medication dosage for those in need. Rather, he said, the state’s rules give guidance on how to treat pain.

It was a sentiment Newhouse echoed.

“We need to find a balance here, there truly are needs for pain management,” he said. “There will always be a need for pain meds.”

But the meeting itself showed the difficulties elected officials, law enforcement, public health administrators, and medical professionals are having trying to deal with an addiction problem that began with prescription pain meds like oxycontin but moved on to illegal opium derivatives like heroin.

Tracy Simmons, the senior Drug Enforcement Agency official in Spokane, focused his talk on black tar heroin smuggled in from Mexico and powerful synthetic opioids fentanyl and carfentanil made in China.

Simmons said a pound of fentanyl worth about $3,000-$5,000 can be turned into 16 pounds of fake oxycontin — hundreds of pills — and sold for $50 per pill.

And Moses Lake is becoming increasingly important to the Sinaloa cartel’s control of the U.S. heroin and fentanyl trade, and illegal opioids brought here are shipped as far away as North Carolina.

“Moses Lake, Yakima and the Tri-Cities are big trans-shipment nodes,” Simmons said.

Baumgartner said new state rules are tracking opioid prescriptions and intend to make it harder for anyone to get an amount of dosage that would allow them to overdose.

“We get 12 million records each year, and most if not all are opioid-related,” Baumgartner said.

Also attending the meeting were Moses Lake Police Chief Kevin Fuhr and Kirk Peterson, director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington state.

While no one objected to battling the illegal drug trade, the law abiding who deal with chronic pain found they were unintentionally the focus as well.

“I understand this is about heroin and fentanyl,” said one audience member. “But it’s easy to put limits on patients like me.”

There are 200,000 people in chronic pain in the 4th Congressional district, another audience member said, and they will vote, especially if their pain meds are taken away.

“This is just the beginning of the conversation for us,” Newhouse said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.