Israel sees opioid use on the rise, study finds

In early May, a US congressional committee released a special report that said China directly subsidizes the production of fentanyl components (high-potency painkillers) for sale outside its borders, fueling the nation’s opioid crisis, which claimed the lives of nearly one million Americans between 1999 and 2020. Big pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family, have been forced to pay billions dollars in compensation.

The Ministry of Health had recently published a draft of a bill aimed at restricting the use of painkillers, but it is a step taken too late because, as has been said over the years, the use of painkillers has increased significantly in Israel.

According to data from the Israel Addiction Center (ICA), updated to March 2023, about half of those who reported using opioids reported “elevated levels of post-traumatic stress after the war in Gaza about six months after begin,” in comparison. to only one-fifth of people who do not take painkillers. In addition, the data show that almost half of those taking pain relievers report an increase in intake that goes against their prescription, and about 40% have increased the dose they were initially prescribed.

One of the patients who became addicted to the painkillers is Oron Yitzhaki, 37, from Tel Aviv. “It started with knee pain, and then I was given painkillers,” he says. “Later I had a traffic accident in the army, and that’s when my nightmare began. I took stronger and stronger painkillers until I got to morphine. I was like that for nine years, and in the last two years, i took a stronger pain reliever until i got to morphine, i got fentanyl patches, which are essentially a hundred times stronger.

For those nine years, I was a dead man walking. At some point I realized that I was already an addict. He was married and had a job. One day I called my wife and told her I wanted her and the kids out of the house. I locked myself in the house for three weeks. I couldn’t work, I didn’t leave the house and there was no one to take care of me. Then my detox process started and that’s where I got my life back, about five years ago.”

He added: “I met successful people who are no longer with us because of these painkillers. There is no oversight on this issue. Not only is there no oversight, but sometimes they give you pills with three months in advance, and this means that you increase the dosage because you have more pills.

Some people get knocked out by this substance, and some treat it like cocaine, feeling on top of the world. It turns you into someone you’re not. Since October 7, there has been a significant increase in the use of opioids. You can see it everywhere on social media. I have friends who serve in the military and they too are looking for ways to escape, he said.

The study carried out by Dr. Reuven Dressler and Dr. Matan Yoel Cohen of HMO Clalit and Dr. Ehud Kleiner of the Ministry of Health, focused on the number of milligrams of morphine to examine the amount of painkillers that were prescribed to patients. The results showed that patients who received more than 90 units per day had a 2.37 times greater risk of death than patients who received less than 50 units.

Patients who received between 50 and 90 units per day had a risk of 2.23 compared with those who received less than 50 units. In addition, there was excess mortality among women aged 18 to 50 who received 50 to 90 units per day, while men in the group had lower death rates.

Another study published in the institute’s journal found a close relationship between socioeconomic status and painkiller use, with rates of use significantly higher in the country’s peripheral areas.

“We are troubled by the findings of the studies published in the journal of Israel’s National Institute for Health Policy Research,” says the president of the National Institute for Health Policy Research, Professor Nahman Ash.

“We agree with the researchers’ position that specific programs need to be developed to address the alarming trend of increasing prescriptions and dosages of powerful and addictive drugs for pain relief. This is a widespread and dangerous global epidemic that is also ‘has spread to Israel he added.

Professor Ash suggests expanding the availability of clinics that offer opioid addiction treatment, while balancing pain management with alternative methods. “One of the worrying findings from the current study is the partial response given to peripheral communities. Action should be taken to expand services and open additional pain clinics in general and in the periphery in particular, thus reducing the extent of opioid use and its long-term negative effects on patients.”