As a chronic pain sufferer, I would love to have an alternative to the “gatekeepers” i.e. doctors that are scared to prescribe due to governmental fear tactics!
I received relief from my pain and was LEGALLY prescribed 100 mcg/h fentanyl patches for 20+ years! Then, my G.P. doctor retired and have never found another doctor that cared or would help me with ANY meds!
I am embarrassed to say that today I am forced into out-patient drug rehab and as then I ALWAYS follow my doctors’ rules and advice! WHY am I being punished because of a few other people’s actions!
Seriously, have gun deaths affected the legal sale of guns? Have car crashes stopped law-abiding citizens from driving again? Have alcoholics and drunk drivers affected ANYONE over the age of 21 to have the ability to buy alcohol virtually anytime and anywhere?!
Obviously, the answer to ALL is a big fat NO!!!
Why do today’s doctors all seem to care less whether a person suffers needlessly because some people abuse them and the DEA says ‘we are watching YOU’?!
I have tried every legal way to obtain meds that will allow me to live life without constant pain! ALL have failed!
Now, my state of Indiana has decided that I must drive to ANY connected state like Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan or Illinois to buy an ‘herbal medicine’ like Kratom? I can remember when you could by what is now called Extacy in your local health store!
So, what can be done? Does ANYONE have ANY ideas?!?!
Better question; why does our government spend billions of dollars to “fight” a “drug war”? Why not do what the best & smartest European countries have done? Have clinics where people can go and be given a choice of getting a prescription for a schedule 1 drug -or- if/when they are ready or NEED it, rehab? The crime rate in these countries has dropped by well over 50%!!! On top of that, people that lived on the streets are mostly employed instead of out stealing for their next fix! The costs in monies and human lives destroyed would drop by well over 50% in the USA!!! Just think of the money and lives saved if we could empty our jails of those there due to drug seeker related crimes!!! That could be as high as 60 – 80% of those currently incarcerated on ANY given day!!! Lastly, because these people are getting pharmaceutical grade drugs prescribed by a doctor, the death rate drops infinitely! How many die simply due to a “bad batch” or even more often lately, buying say heroin and getting the much cheaper and more powerful fentanyl?! How many of these deaths would be avoided?! ALL OF THEM!!! The #1, 2 and 3 reason people overdose and die and/or are mentally or physically injured by drugs is one, they have NO idea how to safely use it and two, EVERY time is a roll of the dice because they CAN’T know what it is they are actually taking!!!
BOTTOM LINE: IF our government REALLY wants to stop overdoses, like they ALL say they do, then the USA NEEDS to look at how the smartest and most advanced successful thinking countries deal with so-called ‘drugs of abuse’ and form a similar system HERE!!! We ALL know the reason, too many closed minds in the USA. Even our own history shows exactly what happens when you illegalize a drug. Simply look at how many people died during prohibition! Anyone can look up this statistic; alcohol is the MOST dangerous regulated drug out there!!! As little as 5 – 7 times the effective dosage can kill you!!! More people die BECAUSE of alcohol and alcohol-related illness in this country than almost ALL other causes of death combined!!! Today the housewife is more likely to die from liver problems related to alcohol the next THREE others COMBINED!!! Remember, during prohibition people were drinking unregulated “alcohol” that was often poisoned! When will we EVER wake up to the reality of this recent taboo on opioids?! EVERYTHING and everyone has good and bad intrinsically there! The best is all we can do and that is to mitigate the bad as much as possible, “without throwing out the baby with the bathwater”!
IF we want to change things then people need to be educated. Unfortunately, in this country, this and MOST other kinds of education ARE and WILL remain absent as our society because it seems to be unable to be educated! Just as we see today a rapid increase in Americans believing in a flat earth, that global climate change is seen as simply “The Weather” and intelligent design to name just a few areas where too many Americans refuse to be educated as to how and why virtually ALL empirical, theoretical and evidentiary information proves them wrong!
Where do we go from here?! As far as I can tell education using time tested proven facts means nothing to WAY to many people in this country! So, my answer is not in MY lifetime. What about you…
