Norminn wrote:

Rx drug overdoses have taken over as the leading cause of death in some
places....in effect, your pain is less critical than the other guy's
life. Although I'm a retired nurse, and have taken care of a lot of
people in pain, I cannot imagine living in chronic pain. I've gotten
hurt a few times, including a fairly serious back strain, and have cared
for it myself....so far nothing that hot packs and rest won't cure )
The "****ing DEA" might save my neighbor's kid from an OD.

They might, but at the expense of hundreds of thousands of chronic pain
sufferers. My pain has nothing to do with the "other guy". If they
can't take their meds responsibly, or keep them locked away from kids
why is that *my* problem? I have 2 bad lumbar disks and one cervical.
My neck is straight, no curve like it's supposed to have. I have spinal
stenosis with radiculopathy. I can tell you when it's about to rain, my
spine is a barometer! My quality of life sucks. Opiates are the only
thing that can touch the pain, and lots of them. What I take would
probably OD an opiate naive person of the same gender and weight.

What do you estimate the percentage of "bad" doctors are, that write
scripts for controlled substances for profit? The "pill mill" doctors.
I'd say less than 1% of all licensed MD's and nurse practitioners. Yet

Oh, boy! Waaaaay, waaaaaaaaaay off.....5% are really bad, just selling
prescriptions with no medical care. 80% probably will "treat" by
prescribing any paying customer....

5% are that bad?! I'll bet most are from Africa or India (not being
racist, it's a personal observation). I may have been inside a few
"pill mills".

if they can't sell wellness (I turned
down the last offer of colonoscopy since I'm much more likely to die of
lung cancer, stroke or heart attack) they will keep ya' coming back for
drugs, preferably non-narcotic. We (the US) are insanely overprescribed
and now they have grandpa by the short hairs with Cialis ads on the tube
every 10 seconds.

I'd like to know where the "over prescribed" data comes from. I've
heard that before. Compared to some countries that have a different
approach to chronic pain, maybe the ratio of narcotic Rx's is higher.
That does not mean *I* get adequate relief though. I'm usually in pain
more often than not because I have to make the pills I get last. When I
first get them filled I'll take a good therapeutic dose for a few days
just to have no pain, then it's back to rationing. It really sucks
trying to decide if you want to have a day "off" from the pain, or risk
running out of meds. at the end of the month. I sometimes wonder if I'm
better off dead.

Florida started cracking down big time only two or three years ago when
the drug mills were causing traffic jams by out-of-state clients.

Well, they are on Texas now like stink on ****. I heard before TX they
were in LA "cracking down", now I hear LA is the place to go if you want
C-2 meds! They are playing a game, picking on states one at a time. As
soon as they 'clean up' a state, they pack up and **** with another.
Then it's business as usual in the 'reformed' state! What a joke.


I don't know a family untouched by drug abuse,

I can't say I do either, if we include the worse one of them all -
alcohol.

and a couple of the meth
users have the scars to show for it....one memorable news article a
while back was about three young kids who called family for help after
they hadn't seen their parents for two or three days....parents were
locked in the bedroom, in bed, dead of drug OD.

That's horrible. Meanwhile, instead of funding drug rehab programs they
keep building more prisons. Yeah, let's lock up all the people with a
disease - that will fix it. Why the US treats addicts as criminals is
beyond stupid. Why are we dumping so much money and manpower to fight
the 'scourge' of marijuana users? Fact: the #1 cause of incarceration
in the Harris County jail (Houston) is marijuana related - mostly
possession. All I can conclude is that it's just a "cash cow" to keep
the police/courts budget up. It's a job creator! Of course, if you get
caught with a little weed and you're now a certified criminal - can't
get a decent job after a drug-related conviction. The system is way
broken. Legalize pot and free-up the police to catch *real* criminals,
instead of ruining good folks lives.

The answer lies in education, early detection of addiction, and access
to treatment. The insurance companies need to classify addiction the
same as any other disease, not put restrictions on number of days or
visits to addiction counselors. That's all changing next year with the
final phase of the AHCA kicking in, no more discrimination against
certain diseases. Mental heath is just as important (or more so) than a
physical malady.