Drug Addicts Experimenting with Anti-Diarrhea Drugs

Just when we thought we had heard it all when it comes to drug and alcohol addiction in the 21st century, the newest information to hit the airwaves is that opioid addicts are now experimenting with anti-diarrhetic drugs. No, you did not misread that. Yes, drug addicts and alcoholics are actually experimenting with anti-diarrhea drugs, and they are getting high from them.

According to research done by the Annals of Emergency Medicine, some opioid addicts are taking massive quantities of anti-diarrhea drugs, all in an effort to avoid opioid withdrawal symptoms. Some addicts are turning to anti-diarrhea drugs to get a quick high when they can’t get access to opioids. Others are turning to anti-diarrhea drugs because they are cheap and come in large quantities. But regardless of the reason for use, abusing anti-diarrhea drugs carries with it a severe degree of risk, just like misusing any type of drug comes with risk.

Details of Anti-Diarrhetic Misuse

One of the most obvious risks in opioid addicts taking anti-diarrhea drugs is the sheer quantity of such drugs that they must consume in order to get high off of them. Addicts need to take anywhere from fifty to five-hundred pills of loperamide, a generic opioid, in order to get the same effects to taking just three or four OxyContin or Vicodin pills.

These addicts are partaking in such misuse of anti-diarrhea drugs even in light of the 2016 warning statement from the Food and Drug Administration which said that:

“Over-the-counter Imodium medication (loperamide) can cause serious heart problems that can lead to death.”

“Over-the-counter Imodium medication (loperamide) can cause serious heart problems that can lead to death.“

The FDA put out this warning because individuals were, in fact, having serious heart problems from taking large quantities of Imodium. In almost every reported case of heart crisis from such misuse of the medicines, the person experiencing the heart issue was an opioid addict. The types of heart problems experienced were usually either ventricular arrhythmias or cardiac arrest.

Why Anti-Diarrhea Drugs?

Most people cannot for a second imagine why anyone would want to ingest fifty to five-hundred pills of anything. Even by addict standards, individuals who will go to any lengths to get their fix, this type of abuse to one’s body seems extremely excessive.

But according to one researcher, William Eggleston, a clinical toxicologist at SUNY Upstate Medical University in New York, addicts are turning to loperamide drugs because of economics. Opioid drugs are not affordable. Not by any means. Serious opioid addicts spend hundreds of dollars a day to support their habit, and even light opioid users will still easily spend fifty to one-hundred dollars a day just to get high once or twice.

Anti-diarrhea drugs, on the other hand, are very cheap. One can buy a box of fifty or one-hundred Imodium pills for about ten to twenty dollars, enough to get an opioid addict high once. The Imodium safety label says not to take more than four pills every twenty-four hours. Addicts ignore that warning and blend hundreds of the pills together in an “Imodium Smoothie” and drink them down all at once.

“If you take 50 to 500 tablets of Imodium a day you can get the same effects of opioids like oxycodone or heroin. Some addicts dump hundreds of caplets into a blender to liquefy them…”

According to William Eggleston:

“If you take 50 to 500 tablets of Imodium a day you can get the same effects of opioids like oxycodone or heroin. Some addicts dump hundreds of caplets into a blender to liquefy them. It’s a pretty big undertaking to take hundreds of tablets a day. It’s time-consuming. A smoothie speeds things up.”

And according to further research from both the National Poison Data System and the Annals of Emergency Medicine, interest in anti-diarrhea drugs amongst opioid addicts is growing. Research indicates that two-thousand addicts have had to go to the ER just in the last few years because of heart complications and near-death experiences with the drugs, and likely thousands more have experimented with the drugs but have not sought out formal medical help for adverse symptoms from taking the drugs.

An Adverse Side Effect of the Opioid Epidemic

In reality, the fact that so many thousands of Americans are now starting to misuse anti-diarrhea drugs is really just a manifestation and side effect of the already ongoing opioid epidemic. The United States is stuck in the midst of a terrible opioid crisis, a national public health emergency regarding opioids that is likely the single greatest health crisis of the 21st-century.

In 2014, 2015, 2016, and likely 2017 (numbers for 2017 have not yet been fully recorded), deaths in the U.S. from opioid drug overdoses were the leading cause of accidental death. This information came from the American Society of Addiction Medicine and was verified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just in 2015 alone, more than twenty-thousand Americans died from prescription opioid painkiller overdoses, and another twelve thousand died from heroin overdoses.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that approximately eight million Americans are addicted to opioids. Some organizations put the number even higher, closer to ten million. This represents about seven percent of the U.S. population that is over the age of fourteen. It is a significant percentage, and that’s a lot of addicts that are running through society, needing help, not getting it, facing withdrawal symptoms, and then having to resort to other dangerous activities, like the misuse of anti-diarrhea drugs, just to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

Preventing the Misuse of Anti-Diarrhea Drugs

No one wants to find out that their family member or loved one is misusing anti-diarrhea drugs. This problem by itself is bad enough, and it’s also indicative that one’s family member or loved one is an opioid addict. To prevent opioid misuse and anti-diarrhea misuse, one should ensure that any and all medicines within the household are kept under lock and key and are all accounted for. Keeping an inventory of medicines in a household is a wise strategy for keeping track of potentially abusable substances.

One should also get educated on these substances and should educate others about their inherent risks and dangers as well. Opioids alone are the single greatest cause of accidental and injury-related death in the U.S., and that is a fact that everyone should know. Raising awareness of the problem and increasing education on the dangers of drug use can, in turn, prevent people from experimenting with such drugs.

Another worthwhile effort to take is to write to drug makers who produce anti-diarrhea drugs and to insist that they make the drugs more difficult to misuse, or to take away the drugs' slight opioid component entirely, so opioid addicts won’t be attracted to them. Writing to the FDA and making one’s voice heard can be helpful too.

No one should have to suffer from an addiction to anything. Drug and alcohol addiction in America needs to become a thing of the past. This problem has only grown since the turn of the century, and that needs to change. We need real solutions to physical health problems that do not involve pharmaceuticals that can become addictive and even life-threatening. And we need real rehabilitation solutions and effective treatment methods for addicts. A drug-free society is within reach, but it will take some major changes and strong, combined efforts to get us there.

Sources:

• https://www.pharmacytimes.com/product-news/fda-aims-to-limit-packaging-for-antidiarrhea-drug-to-reduce-abuse-misuse
• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-cracks-down-on-abuse-of-anti-diarrhea-medication/
• https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2017-04-26/some-opioid-addicts-are-using-an-anti-diarrhea-drug-to-get-their-fix