Updated by German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com Jan 25, 2016, 11:10am EST
Amid all the horrors of the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic, one good bit of news is that it hasn't hit minority communities very hard. But there's never really been, in my view, a satisfactory explanation for this: Why are minority communities avoiding the worst of the epidemic?
Well, the New York Times has a possible explanation — and it's disheartening. Gina Kolata and Sarah Cohen reported for the Times:
There is a reason that blacks appear to have been spared the worst of the narcotic epidemic, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a drug abuse expert. Studies have found that doctors are much more reluctant to prescribe painkillers to minority patients, worrying that they might sell them or become addicted.
"The answer is that racial stereotypes are protecting these patients from the addiction epidemic," said Dr. Kolodny, a senior scientist at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and chief medical officer for Phoenix House Foundation, a national drug and alcohol treatment company.
It's a troubling possibility: Basically, doctors didn't give black patients drugs that were thought to be needed for pain treatment due to racist stereotypes. Then white patients who got the drugs became addicted, and some, over time, shifted to another, cheaper, more potent opioid — heroin — to satiate their addiction.
TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826560/opioid-epidemic-race-black
Well, the New York Times has a possible explanation — and it's disheartening. Gina Kolata and Sarah Cohen reported for the Times:
There is a reason that blacks appear to have been spared the worst of the narcotic epidemic, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a drug abuse expert. Studies have found that doctors are much more reluctant to prescribe painkillers to minority patients, worrying that they might sell them or become addicted.
"The answer is that racial stereotypes are protecting these patients from the addiction epidemic," said Dr. Kolodny, a senior scientist at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and chief medical officer for Phoenix House Foundation, a national drug and alcohol treatment company.
It's a troubling possibility: Basically, doctors didn't give black patients drugs that were thought to be needed for pain treatment due to racist stereotypes. Then white patients who got the drugs became addicted, and some, over time, shifted to another, cheaper, more potent opioid — heroin — to satiate their addiction.
TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826560/opioid-epidemic-race-black
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