Yes

by Anthony Megna

Created on: September 16, 2008

Drugs for chronic pain management have a number of hoops that must be jumped through by the patient in order to get relief from their pain. I know, as I am one of those pain patients. Doctors are scared to prescribe these beneficial drugs, as they have the feds breathing down their neck whenever these class 2 drugs are prescribed. I'll cite an example:

I have to go to my pain doctor every month to receive my prescription for degenerative disc disease. This is a very painfull malady, and just like it says, it is degenerative. So it doesn't get better, only worse. I must have tried every drug under the sun, and I have finally sought a balance of two medications that allow me to live a somewhat normal life. That doesn't mean the entire pain is eliminated, it just means I'm not in agony everyday. The two drugs are Duragesic patches, which actually adhere to the back and oxycodone pills. When talking about pain management, doctors like to talk about breakthrough pain. Breakthrough pain is pain that is above and beyond the normal pain one feels. That pain is attacked with oxycodone. Oxycodone is a wonder drug, and it lasts about 4 hours. The duragesic patch has fentanyl in it, which is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) pain medicines on the market today. It is about one hundred times stronger than oxycodone, so that gives you an estimate of how powerfull it is. Naturally, only a very small dose is used on the patch, which is worn and changed every 2 to 3 days. But it is extremely effective.

Because of all the dope addicts trying to get high by crushing oxycodone and snorting it like cocaine, the feds have placed restrictions on this drug and others. I have to make a special trip to my pain doctor every month just to get the prescription. He used to be able to prescribe the medicine 3 months in advance, but because of federal restrictions, he can't do that anymore. That is a big inconvenience for me, as I have to pay for the doctor's visit, drive down there, drive over to the pharmacy, and it is a waste of half of a day. All because some morons steal the drug and use it or sell it. Because of my pain, I really don't know what it is when they talk about a "high" from the drug. I took a double dose once and ended up falling asleep. It just makes me tired, but it does conquer the pain.

The "war on drugs" is a huge waste. Remember prohibition? Didn't work, did it? People are going to do what they want to do, and that includes putting things in their body they don't really need. But to throw them in prison for it is ridiculous. We have over 2 million people in prison in America, and most are there for drug offences. And it is easy to go out on the street and buy any street drug you are looking for. Remember Pablo Escobar, the narcotrafficer from Columbia? At his height of power, he was exporting almost twenty tons of cocaine to the states annually and the DEA estimated that was only around 3 to 4 percent of the cocaine available. Think about that! Cocaine in Columbia is like coffee, a huge market and even bigger export. Something is wrong with the war on drugs.

Unfortunately, the people who really need pain medicine suffer from all the regulations and have to find doctors not afraid to prescribe what the drug was designed to do, which is to eliminate pain.

Let's keep the chronic pain patients under a different system for obtaining their much needed medication if possible, and not group them into the "street druggers" category. It only adds to their pain.

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