Montpelier, VT (WorkersCompensation.com) – After a baffling Super Bowl advertisement promoting a drug to help Americans take more opiates, Gov. Peter Shumlin is calling on the two drug companies that paid for it to pull the ad off the air and instead use the money to fund opiate and heroin prevention and treatment programs. In a letter to the drug makers, the Governor called the ad poorly timed and a shameful attempt to exploit America’s addiction crisis to boost corporate profits.

The minute-long advertisement for opioid-induced constipation (OIC) – a condition brought on by long-term opioid use – comes at a time when America is battling a full-blown opiate and heroin addiction crisis. Gov. Shumlin has placed the blame for that crisis at the feet of the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) and pharmaceutical industry, which together have enabled pain management practices that in 2012 resulted in the issuing of enough opiate prescriptions to give every American their own bottle of pills.

“The irrational exuberance with which opiates are handed out in America is driving the addiction crisis in this country,” Gov. Shumlin wrote in a letter to the drug companies that paid for the ad. “Now is the time to change that, not attempt to further normalize long-term opiate use by advertising a drug to help people take even more opiates…”

The ad was paid for by drug makers AstraZeneca and Daiichi-Sankyo, which make the OIC treatment drug…