Public Health England have recently reported a rise in the use of the drug Xanax amongst children. The drug is produced for anxiety treatment, and is increasingly being bought online via the ‘dark web’ from mainly Chinese-based manufacturers.
These manufacturers have no qualms with mixing their produce with other substances, in order to decrease their costs and maximise their profits. This includes drugs such as fentanyl, an opiate that has taken the lives of over 100 people in the UK already.
Public Health England’s report shows just how dangerous this type of ‘recreational’ drug use can be. 53 children received treatment for the drug in 2017-18.
Addiction to such drugs is also considered to be one of the major factors in the growth of heroin use in the USA over the last decade. In some states, this addiction epidemic has reached crisis levels.
There is evidence of strong links between people first becoming hooked on prescription drugs, such as Xanax, before being forced to turn to the black market when their prescription is insufficient or runs out.
Vultures circling
This situation is exacerbated in the US by the role of privatised healthcare. Big pharmaceutical companies encourage doctors to prescribe their products – even if the prescription is unnecessarily – in place of more effective but less profitable treatments, such as counselling.
The number of adults in the USA prescribed benzodiazepines (which includes Xanax) rose by 67% between 1996 and 2013. American patients also have the ‘privilege’ of footing the bill too, with some drugs costing patients hundreds of dollars. This yields massive profits for the pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer, the company which manufactures Xanax are set to make over $50 billion this year alone.
Such companies pose a definite threat to us in the UK. These private healthcare firms salivate at the thought of dismantling of our NHS. Already, the major drug monopolies make a killing from selling to the public health service.
Since 2010, the Tories have slashed NHS budgets, resulting in hospital closures and an overburdened, understaffed healthcare system, teetering on the edge of collapse. For example, whilst the need for drug and alcohol treatment services is growing, funding has been slashed across England by 16% in the last four years.
These predatory healthcare companies, meanwhile, circle overhead like vultures. In some areas they have already begun their scavenging. One arm of the American company UnitedHealth Group, Optum, is already known to be working within the NHS, providing business services such as contract negotiation.
When profit is put before people, it is ordinary people that lose out every time.
Stop killing our NHS
A Labour government, armed with a socialist programme, must implement a complete reversal of the cuts and privatisation that have taken place in the NHS. Labour should put an end to profiteering by parasitic companies, scrapping outsourcing and nationalising the big pharmaceutical producers.
We must fight for a full and irreversible nationalisation of the NHS, run by healthcare workers and patients. We need an NHS equipped to provide the most effective and modern treatments – not one designed to prescribe drugs based on the return of profit.
