STOP Addiction - Make Fioricet a Controlled Substance in all 50 states

The Issue

Since the 1980s my grandmother has been taking the prescription medication known as Fioricet which is a migraine medicine that contains a barbiturate known as Butalbital as well as Tylenol and Caffeine. Since beginning this medication, she has never stopped being prescribed it. Fastforward a few years to the late 90s when my mother became a teenager, she was given one of them by my grandmother because of a bad headache at the time. This led to my mom enjoying that pill and her getting a prescription of her own, very easily I might add, which was then followed by 25+ years of her own addiction up until this very day.

Although this drug is marketed and prescribed as a headache/migraine medication the dangers and risks of addiction to this medication are highly downplayed here in the United States of America. In European countries Butalbital is banned, why is it not here? I believe it to be because of lobbying from prescription drug manufactures who have money to be made off the addictions of people across this country. There have been many cases of this drug that show the addictive nature as well as the adverse side effects that it can cause. Not only does it cause addiction, euphoria, and a physical dependency but it also can do be known to do the exact opposite of the very thing it is designed for. It's known that people who stop taking the medication can suffer severe rebound headaches for up to 2-6 months after quitting. The withdrawals are another thing rarely talked about when it comes to this medication with some cases leading to drastic outcomes such as seizures.

I ask anyone who comes across this petition to please help me get this to the right people out there who can do something about this. My family has suffered for 40+ years from this medication that the government won't even recognize it as being dangerous enough to schedule as a controlled substance. The pharmaceutical industry has found a loophole to keep this drug from becoming a controlled substance. The "sibling prescription," so to speak, of Fioricet is known as Fiorinal and it actually is considered a controlled substance in all 50 states. The only difference between Fioricet and Fiorinal is that Fiorinal has aspirin instead of Tylenol in it. Because of the Tylenol present in the Fioricet the lawmakers found a loophole to keep it from also being classified as a controlled substance.

While there are not enough sources on the internet to find a direct amount of people affected by this drug, I have read many stories from reddit threads to Facebook posts, as well as YouTube videos detailing the addiction and pain this prescription has caused families and individuals to endure. This is the lives of countless Americans that the pharmaceutical is looking past purely for profit and because of greed. I ask, why is it that the European countries can see a problem drug and ban it but here we create loopholes to keep it from being classified in the correct drug classification to warn doctors and patients of its detrimental effects?

This petition is to ask the relevant lawmakers in the United States of America to please reconsider making the classification of this drug into a controlled substance and/or a complete ban on Butalbital in the USA like many of our allied countries in Europe have already. The time to act is now! There's been far too much pain and suffering happening within American family homes, including my own, to let this drug continue to be passed out so easily in this country.

The above video from 1955 shows how easy it is to get addicted to barbiturates like Fioricet and how overlooked they can be by doctors. Below are some helpful links for those not well versed in this topic as well as some resources for anyone who may be struggling with Fioricet or butalbital addiction.