On Tuesday, Governor Bill Walker signed legislation aimed at Alaska’s opioid epidemic. It was a bill he initially submitted to the legislature in March and was approved by wide bipartisan margins in both houses. But across the full spectrum of American life, the argument offered by some who opposed it will remain a barrier to regulating most commercially available products that cause harmful addictions.
Since 2009 there have been almost 500 opioid overdose deaths in Alaska. Taken in high doses, the drug can significantly reduce anxiety or produce an intoxicating high, both of which can lead to addiction. But unlike heroin and cocaine, the first time most people are exposed to opioids is in their doctor prescribed medications for chronic pain management or following surgery.
House Bill 159 will give patients the means to inform doctors that they don’t want to be administered painkillers containing opioids. For anyone else, it sets a seven-day limit for initial prescriptions. Additionally, it strengthens monitoring protocols for the drugs and requires medical professionals to demonstrate continuing education in pain management, opioid use and addiction.
According to news reports, several house members opposed HB 159 because they prefer to let the medical profession govern itself. That they didn’t take the initiative before Walker acted doesn’t mean those legislators are wrong. But the fact is, when it comes to other regulating most legally available addictive products, the government is usually on the wrong side of the problem.
Tobacco is an obvious example. It took decades for the federal government to concur with the scientific evidence that smoking cigarettes was a primary cause of lung cancer. And another three decades passed before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially classified the nicotine in tobacco as a dependency-producing drug.
But in 2000, the Supreme Court ruled the FDA can’t regulate tobacco without the express authorization of Congress. They haven’t given it. And smoking tobacco remains one of leading causes of preventable deaths in America.
Sugar is next. The government doesn’t consider it to be addictive like nicotine. But sugar creates a similar set of uncontrollable cravings, chemical highs and intermittent rewards that are the hallmark signs of addiction. Too much of it can lead to type-2 diabetes and obesity. That’s why, in 2015, the FDA recommended we limit the amount of added sugars in our diet to no more than ten percent of our daily caloric intake. But it has no power to regulate how much sugar the industry can add to processed foods.
Remember the Lay’s potato chips bet we “can’t eat just one!” That’s because their coating of salt, fat and sugar was purposely designed to hook us into eating more. Chips won’t kill anyone, but that shouldn’t give manufacturers the right to encourage unhealthy eating habits.
“How do we break this cycle?” Mark Bittman asked in a NY Times article about the food industry. “You can’t blame corporations for trying to profit by any means necessary, even immoral ones: It’s their nature.”
That’s true in the world of technology too. Psychiatrists are debating adding “digital addictions” to their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders because they have common attractions, intermittent rewards and even tragic outcomes as some hard drugs.
“Tech companies are invested in hooking people into spending more and more time online” NPR reporter Lesley McClurg said after interviewing Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google. That’s because the longer we’re connected, the more advertising revenue they can deliver to their bottom line.
Like tobacco, sugar and chips, the tech industry can’t regulate itself in a competitive environment when profit is the sole motivator. It’s why Harris eventually quit his job at Google and started up Time Well Spent, a non-profit running under the banner “Let’s demand technology that serves us, not advertising.”
Likewise, our government should be serving the people too. But in our almost religious dedication to capitalism, too often the economy comes first. And addicted consumers add more fertilizer to keep it growing.
In Walker’s sponsor statement for HB 129, he noted “persons suffering with addiction are frustrated and unable to reach their potential.” That applies to all forms of addiction, whether life threatening or not. Each case lessens society’s potential to solve the serious problems we all face. That’s why it’s in the government’s interest to regulate all businesses that market addictive products.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. He contributes a regular column to the Juneau Empire.
