An Open Letter To The President
Summary and Analysis…
In an open letter to the President and other officials, Dr. John Giordano and Dr. Kenneth Blum take the position that “We Cannot Prescribe Our Way Out Of America’s Opiate/Opioid Epidemic.”
The letter exemplifies the kinds of controversies that surround an all-or-nothing approach to Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT). Their text traces the history of America’s use of opioids, including the repeating use of a “new” opioid to address addiction to the “old.”
Their experience indicates that in practice MAT becomes the use of FDA approved medications for the treatment of opiate/opioid addiction rather than the more complete version of MAT which includes counseling, addressing root causes underlying addiction and follow-up.
They highlight the problem of polydrug abuse associated with MAT taken with other drugs as well as deaths tied directed to FDA approved MAT opioids.
The letter conveys the experience of doctors who indicate they have been on the front line of addiction treatment, and in particular, their concerns about the dangers in exclusionary adoption of MAT.
Excerpted from HolisticAddictionInfo
From the beginning of the letter:
“We Cannot Prescribe Our Way Out Of America’s Opiate/Opioid Epidemic
“Dr. John Giordano and Dr. Kenneth Blum are internationally recognized experts and speakers on addiction and its treatment who provide a unique perspective with their rare combination of scientific research with applied science in the hands on treatment of addicts.
“John Giordano DHL, MAC, CAP is a thirty-year veteran of clinical addiction treatment. Mr. Giordano is the founder and former owner of G & G Holistic Addiction Treatment Center, a 62 bed JCAHO accredited facility located in North Miami Beach, Fl.; and has contributed to sixty-five papers on addiction and its treatment published in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals and is considered by Research Gate to be one of the top researchers in the country.
“Dr. Kenneth Blum, a researcher on neuropsychopharmacology and genetics and the co-discoverer of the first confirmed Reward Gene; aka/the addiction gene, the alcoholic gene. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on addiction and its treatment. Dr. Blum retired as a full professor in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Texas, where he was also chief of the Division of Addictive Diseases, chief of the Division of Substance and Alcohol Misuse, and director of the Laboratory of Pharmacogenetics at the University of Texas Health Science Center (San Antonio, Texas) and has written over five-hundred papers on addiction and its treatment published in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals.”
