Topic: opioids

We should anticipate that many patients with opioid disorders will also be in treatment for some chronic medical disorder.

This goes back to a problem in assessing pain. There’s no physical test for what is essentially a subjective experience.

There’s a civil rights issue: Over time, suspension of those rights can (and often does) become the new normal.

That was always the flaw with the concept of fighting a “war” on drugs– who exactly is the enemy?

Eventually it’s the business that adapts to a changed environment. But before they do, some will go to great lengths to prop up the revenue from their current opioid products.

But it quickly becomes clear that the powers that be within the land are far more interested in fighting and squabbling among themselves over political power and riches, than in addressing this existential horror. 

That’s the thing about illicit drug use– no quality control, or truth in advertising.

We were warned about such risks, but went ahead anyway.

Here was a physician who regularly committed an assortment of crimes without considering himself a criminal. To his way of thinking, he was the victim.

“If the patient takes them for other reasons, or even resells them on the street– well, nothing I can do about that. It’s the patient’s own fault.”