Will We See “Gatordil” in Florida Soon?
I can decide what I feel (pain, for example). I can prove I’m competent by facing any person or group, looking them in the eye, and explaining myself. I should be able to decide what helps me lessen my own pain, and this ability has nothing to do with my college degree. I shouldn’t have to give an explanation to anyone, but a series of primitive lies and beliefs are causing many people in our society to suffer bigoted treatment. Fat-cat authoritarians sat in a square yesterday in the President’s “Opioid Commission” — a meeting chaired by Governor Chris Christie, who is addicted to eating (obesity kills many times the number of people on average per year than all drugs — not just opioids).
If I explain to someone standing in front of me that I’ve been killing myself slowly for decades with aspirin (BC Powders) they will say “Well don’t take them.” When I explain to them the only alternatives that work without harming my stomach (actually duodenum) are opioids, and that opioids are no longer accessible to me except for Subutex (buprenorphine, which miraculously works…for me, not everyone) they say the same thing. Interestingly, they never say “Sorry, Lee, but we need to save heroin addicts, so you can’t have access to hydrocodone any longer” when I’m looking them in the eye. They say “Oh, well yeah — YOU should be able to get opioids.” And here we have the entire problem laid out for any rational thinking person to see. But at least half of Americans today no longer think rationally.
Once they create policy allowing any individual or group (bureaucrats, DEA agents, politicians using policies with average maximum dosages, for example, or even doctors) to decide who “deserves” pain relief, our leaders are committing an egregiously arrogant mistake. The only remaining question is whether a few people are going to be suffering and dying because nobody “believes” them, or there’s going to be a genocide. Unfortunately, we’re rapidly approaching the latter. Federal politicians are ferociously seeking the advantages of screaming “Drugs are bad!” They’re using a fabricated moral panic to get votes (and graft, undoubtedly, in some cases). Deaths related to legal opioids are not an “epidemic,” and they never were. A very questionable assumption is being presumed about legally marketed opioids being a “gateway drug.”
In the end, whether it’s fair or not we’re seeing a fabricated battle between heroin addicts and pain patients marketed by nonprofits (like PROP and Fed Up! — led by Andrew Kolodny) and political leaders. Drug addicts and pain patients are two very different groups of people who should be working together against government. They should both respect the fundamental principles outlined by our Forefathers, but instead they’ve been divided and conquered. Emotional hand-waving by family members and friends of overdose victims has won out for the past five years, and so pain patients are now being treated like heroin addicts in pharmacies. Even cancer patients are getting inadequate pain relief in states like Florida. Many people are instinctively echoing archaic beliefs about drug use we know are false.
If someone overdoses on heroin, blaming and “combating” the first drug they used is wrong (blaming heroin is almost as pointless). Blaming a dentist, doctor, or pharmacist is equally wrong, as is using false statistics. The CDC’s 2011 “opioid epidemic” report is criminally misleading. Our current drug policy is insane. Allowing government to use law enforcement and other types of regulation to preempt individual mistakes through collective control of a substance will not only fail — it will cause the opposite of the intended effect. We’ve been testing this theory for at least a half-century (arguably longer), and we know it’s true. At the very least, it’s the best theory at present. If any of this offends family members of overdose victims, too bad. Kolodny’s marketing of a fake epidemic was believed by politicians like Governor Chris Christie and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and together they’re about to cause a genocide. Either they must recognize their error, or they must be stopped by other leaders or organizations. Pain patients are just beginning to organize. Most doctors and pharmacists, drug makers, and even journalists are benefitting from this bizarre culling of the most vulnerable members of our society.
In spite of the fact that Florida has been “cracking down” for over five years, Governor Rick Scott and A.G. Bondi refuse to acknowledge that this show of force has resulted in a disaster. Better individual choices for both patients and addicts have been erased by overreaching control. The DEA is now the “pain doctor” for Floridians, and they decide using averages (without looking at individual patients) who deserves pain relief. Overdoses from illicit drugs have skyrocketed, while prescribing has decreased or remained steady. An unknown number of Floridians have been forced to taper or completely stop taking medication they need to function. Some are already killing themselves, and perhaps some are now using heroin or marijuana. The statistics don’t matter when fundamental principles are abandoned. The response of Scott and Bondi — along with all of the other neanderthals who still think Florida is a “pill mill” capital — is arguing we need to “crack down” and “combat” some more.
Greater levels of prescription drug control will be recommended federally by the White House “Opioid Commission” soon, based on the false assumption that prescribing is a problem. It isn’t. We know the real problem is illicit fentanyl being sold as “heroin” and other drugs (in the case of Prince, sold as “hydrocodone”). Addressing a different problem will not solve the one killing drug addicts. The principle we should be following is maximizing the choices individual Americans are able to make, and limiting government control that attempts to preemptively erase these very personal health choices. If addicts want assistance, their environment should be extremely controlled, not the environment of the entire nation. Pill mills are much better than an inability for our most disabled citizens to have access to pain relief through their doctor (or over-the-counter, since heroin is widely accessible and cheap, though risky).
My position has changed, because I greatly underestimated the negative impact of arrogant ignorance, greed, and what I’ve decided is an absence of “empathy.” We shouldn’t allow the prescribing system to be used for law enforcement without a warrant connected to a specific person or business suspected of criminal activity. Buprenorphine should be sold over-the-counter at 2mg, at a price comparable to aspirin. We should expect an increase in “addicts” with the hope we’ll see improved product quality, since the reason addicts are dying is because they’re buying and using a more-potent-than-expected mislabeled product purchased in a black market. Any pain patient or drug addict should be able to get a prescription from a primary care physician, just like smoking/alcohol addicts, or diabetics. We need to stop promoting shady “rehab” clinics like Governor Christie has been doing. They succeed when an opioid is prescribed, typically. We need to stop favoring one opioid over another using policy, because every individual is unique. Let individuals decide first, then doctors (if an individual needs additional knowledge). Stop prejudicially generalizing about all doctors based on a few bad examples. The “pain doctor” designation should not be allowed. State databases of innocent people should not be allowed.
The most creative recommendation by the “Opioid Commission” would be drug decriminalization, and getting government out of doctor’s offices. The DEA should not be allowed to focus on legal medication. They should really be dismantled. Much of the black-market drug trade probably has an associated DEA handprint. They’re going after people who follow the rules because it’s easy, while they fail to do the job of “getting drugs off the street” (which is impossible, but that’s their problem). If President Trump implements any recommendation other than protecting a free-market choice or funding for all people who benefit from using opioids — based on their own individual assessment about their condition, and not just drug addicts — he will go down in history right alongside President Obama as two men who caused a genocide of people who suffer pain daily.
We have an epidemic in the United States and the world — of untreated chronic pain. Injured veterans, elderly people, and millions of others are now rotting and suffering in pain. Many of them are alone, without assistance, after having the safest drug that allowed them to move around and contribute taken away by arbitrary government force. Treating individuals as averages destroys the moral fabric of a nation (socialism). We have a two-tiered system, since Congress or elitists who are able to pay can get pain relief. I’m still waiting for Representative Steve Scalise to publicly state whether he used an opioid after being shot (by a socialist). A drug that works has been effectively taken away as a means of punishment, to absolve a group of already dead overdose victims of the responsibility for making their own choices. How does that make sense? Policy does not stop drug addicts from choosing, even if they lack free will.
Let’s try something else — something creative. The Soviet Union already tried a Marxist level of government control via armed force and overreaching regulation in the 1980’s, and the result was “krokodil.” I can already think of a few potential names for the toxic new drug we’ll be seeing in Florida soon.
