"Everyone's loaded, all the time!"
By Tim
Pearce: The manufacturing industry in Ohio is expanding under the
Trump administration, but growth is stunted because many potential employees
are also addicted to drugs.
Steve Staub, who runs Staub Manufacturing
Solutions in Ohio, attended the State of the Union address Tuesday as a special
guest to President Donald Trump. While there, aside from participating in the
pageantry, Staub discussed problems in the manufacturing industry and business
in general with the president.
Staub mentioned to Trump the
toll the opioid crisis has had on business’ ability to fill jobs. About two
million Americans nationwide are addicted
to the drug. The crisis has been particularly hard on Staub’s home state of
Ohio, were thousands of job applicants are turned away because of substance
abuse.
“In Ohio alone, they have about 20,000
available jobs in manufacturing. In Dayton, Ohio, where I’m from, we have about
4,000 jobs available today in manufacturing that we can’t fill,” Staub told
TheDCNF.
“We can’t get people to pass a drug test.”
Other area’s on Staub’s list of concerns
are taxes, regulations, health care, and infrastructure.
The Trump administration has made
significant, direct strides in two of those areas. At the end of 2017, Trump
signed into law the GOP tax plan and unleashed
a torrent of investment in the form of raised wages and bonuses. The Trump
administration has also reversed
the expansion of the regulatory state, which increases the costs of doing
business.
Republicans punted on
health care, however, as they could not build the support needed to reform or
repeal the Affordable Care Act, known widely as Obamacare.
The fate of Trump’s infrastructure plan
remains to be seen. Trump championed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure investment
plan during his address to Congress last week.
“Together, we can reclaim our building
heritage,” Trump said. “We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways,
railways, and waterways all across our land. And we will do it with American
heart, American hands, and American grit.”
More than anything, Staub believes the
Trump administration has had the greatest impact on the “overall optimism” of
the manufacturing industry and business in general as companies adopt plans for
growth and expansion. The National Association of Manufacturers, in their
Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey taken every quarter for two decades, found optimism to be at an all-time high
in the last quarter of 2017.
Along with the financial boost from the GOP
tax plan, companies began implementing their strategies for growth almost
immediately.
“We’ve gave a much larger Christmas bonus
than we were going to when [tax reform] passed,” Staub told TheDCNF of his own
company.
“We are giving raises to everybody, and we
went ahead and expanded and bought the building next door to us that was for
sale as part of our future growth.”
Still, it appears achieving the optimistic
goals comes back to hiring the right people and that seems to be tough to find
in America today.. not because of "wrong skills" but because
everyone's loaded... all the time.
1861-1865 - During the Civil War,
medics use morphine as a battlefield anesthetic. Many soldiers become dependent
on morphine after the war.
1898 - Heroin is
first produced commercially by the Bayer Company. At the time,
heroin is believed to be less habit-forming than morphine, so it is dispensed
to individuals who are addicted to morphine.
1914 - Congress
passes the Harrison Narcotics Act, which requires that doctors write
prescriptions for narcotic drugs like opioids and cocaine. Importers,
manufacturers and distributors of narcotics must register with the Treasury
Department and pay taxes on product.
1924 - The Anti-Heroin Act bans the
production and sale of heroin in the United States.
1970 - The Controlled Substances Act becomes
law. It creates groupings (or schedules) of drugs based on the
potential for abuse. Heroin is a Schedule I drug while morphine, fentanyl,
oxycodone (Percocet, OxyContin) and methadone are Schedule II. Vicodin - a
hydrocodone-acetaminophen combination - was originally a Schedule III
medication but wasn't recategorized as a Schedule II drug until October 2014.
January 10, 1980 - A letter
titled "Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics" is
published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was not a
study and looked at incidences of addiction in a very specific population of
hospitalized patients who were closely monitored. However, it would become
widely cited as proof that narcotics were a safe treatment for chronic pain.
1995 - OxyContin, a
long acting version of oxycodone, which slowly releases the drug over 12
hours, is introduced and aggressively marketed as a safer pain
pill by manufacturer, Purdue Pharma.
May 10, 2007 - The federal government
brings criminal charges against Purdue Pharma for misleadingly advertising
OxyContin as safer and less addictive than other opioids. The company and three
executives are charged with "misleading and defrauding physicians and
consumers."Purdue Pharma
and the executives plead guilty, agreeing to pay a $634.5 million in criminal
and civil fines. The three executives plead guilty on criminal
misdemeanor charges and are later sentenced to probation.
2010 - FDA approves an
"abuse-deterrant" formulation of OxyContin, to help curb abuse.
However, people still find ways to abuse it.
May 20, 2015 - The DEA announces that
it has arrested 280 people, including 22 doctors and pharmacists, after a
15-month sting operation centered on health care providers who dispense large
amounts of opioids. The sting,
dubbed Operation Pilluted, is the largest prescription drug bust in the history
of the DEA.
March 18, 2016 - The CDC
publishes guidelines for prescribing opioids for patients with chronic pain. Recommendations
include prescribing over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen and
ibuprofen in lieu of opioids. Doctors are encouraged to promote exercise and
behavioral treatments to help patients cope with pain.
March 29, 2017 - President
Donald Trump signs an executive order calling for the
establishment of the President's
Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie is selected as the chairman of the
group, with Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as an adviser.
July 31, 2017 - After a delay, the
White House panel examining the nation's opioid epidemic releases its interim
report, asking President Trump to declare a
national public health emergency to combat the ongoing crisis.
August 8, 2017 - Trump holds a
press briefing on opioids at his New Jersey golf club and says that a stronger
law enforcement response is needed to combat the crisis. He
stops short of declaring a national public health emergency.
August 10, 2017 - The White
House issues a press release stating that Trump is directing
his "administration to use all appropriate authority to respond to the
opioid emergency." The
administration does not, however, make a formal declaration of a national
public health emergency, which would free up resources and funding to help
opioid addicts and jumpstart prevention programs.
September 22, 2017 - The pharmacy
chain CVS announces that it will implement new restrictions on filling
prescriptions for opioids, dispensing a limited seven-day supply to patients
who are new to pain therapy.
October 26, 2017 - President Trump declares
a national public health emergency to combat the opioid crisis,
telling an audience in the East Room of the White House that "we can be
the generation that ends the opioid epidemic."
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