Triumph! Doctors In The USA Are Winning The War On Pain!

AND HOW DO WE KNOW THAT, YOU ASK?

The Washington Post reported recently that in the year 2014, deaths due to overdose on prescription painkillers went up just over 16%, with a total of 18,893 funerals for the year.  Heroin overdose deaths rose a staggering 28% last year, but still reached a total of only 10,574 funerals.  If it's a contest -- as hard as the heroin addicts are trying to catch up -- the prescription drugs are winning easily.

According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, in 2012, 259 million prescriptions were written for opioid drugs in this country -- enough so that every adult in America could have a bottle.  Two people die every hour from those prescriptions. 

From 1999 to 2002, deaths from using illegal opioids rose 12.4%; in the same time span, deaths from the clean, legal pharmaceutical stuff rose 91.2%.  Wow!

I know what you're asking: that's still a terrifying number of heroin addicts.  Isn't heroin well known to be a deadly drug that nobody should ever, ever touch?  Because it kills you!!!  Why, then, are so many people using the stuff?  Here's why:  doctors will only prescribe opioids for so long, because of the addictive potential. USUALLY. 

PLEASE NOTE:  That doesn't mean they explain that danger to their patients.  They're likely to feed the poor sucker a lot of disinformation: "You can't get addicted if you're really in pain."  (Never mind that opioids lower your pain threshold, creating more pain than you had before you started taking them.)   "I can tell you're not an addictive personality, so you're in no danger."  (Never mind that the very nature of opioids creates tolerance, then dependency, and start doing this as soon as you start taking them.  Never mind that some people simply react very powerfully, in a purely physical way, to the stuff and can't help getting addicted regardless of what kind of personality they have.)   "I'm supervising your treatment, and I'll know if you're in danger of getting addicted."  (Never mind that a lot of MDs wouldn't know an addict if  they got bitten by one.)  "This is the safest, optimal treatment for your pain condition, so you NEED to take this kind of painkiller."  (Never mind that there are plenty of effective, less-addictive or non-addictive alternatives out there.)

But finally, enough is enough, right?  And once they cut you off, hey, what are you going to do?  Detox?  Hell no!  Drive downtown and get some of the easy-to find Mexican "black tar" available for a few bucks on every streetcorner.  This is exactly what your kids have to do after they run out of the unused opioids you left in the medicine cabinet.  If you don't get wise, before you know it you'll be carpooling down there with half the neighborhood.

WHY IS ALL THIS HAPPENING, YOU ASK?

Well, people decided at some point that they had a RIGHT to be pain-free at all times.  They decided that pain creates CHAOS in their lives and they want pain-free ORDER.  The doctors -- frighteningly -- AGREED, maybe because they are sick of dealing with people complaining about how much pain they're in.  Or maybe they really believe pain is intolerable.  So the doctors started handing out renewable prescriptions of what they seem to see as little oval doses of ORDER.  For ANYTHING.  Whether the stuff helps the patient with a health problem or NOT.

 

But remember, gentle reader, that Order can be as destructive as it can be creative.  THE SAME IS TRUE FOR CHAOS.  And as we ALL know, Chaos and Order blend into each other, like interpenetrating GHOSTS.  So do creation and destruction.  Trying to separate them into boxes is pretty much crazymaking.

JUST PONDER THIS IMAGE FOR A MOMENT:

Riddle me this: Is it an image of Chaos or Order?

• A medical doctor would probably say, "It depends on what's in the needle."

• An addict would say, "it depends on whether or not I get to have what's in that needle."

• An anti-vaxxer would simply tuck tail and run with a screaming child clutched under each arm.

Me, I see the ORDERLY progression of addiction caused by the DISORDERLY dispensing of addictive drugs.

I am challenging my readers to think it through a little better than that following this familiar diagram from the Principia Discordia:

I'm also challenging people who were smart enough to get all the way through med school to stop being so fucking stupid.