| > You just dont fight the war on drugs on the back of chronic pain patients. You're pushing the same line that Purdue did - that there's an epidemic of untreated pain and that it is cruel to leave people without treatment. This point always comes up when discussing the US opioid crisis. What do we do about people in severe pain? What do we do about people in long term pain? The US massively over-prescribes opioids. The US could reduce opioid prescribing by 80% and it would have no effect for these groups of people. But, more importantly, for most people in long term pain opioids are the wrong choice. Opioids are a good choice for end of life care, and for short term acute pain (especially when supervised in a hospital setting). But for long term pain opioids are for most people a poor choice. The patient will develop a tolerance to the opioid which means it's not working to treat the pain. They'll need to increase the dose of opioids. This increases the risk of harm from the medication. It also increases the risk of dependency. So, you end up with someone addicted to opioids, taking very large doses, yet still in pain. Note I'm not saying all people. Some people who are carefully selected and regularly monitored will get some benefit from opioids. Here's a radio programme with an interview with someone who was prescribed opioids for long term non cancer pain, and how it caused him harm: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wv052 Here's the UK Royal College of Anaesthetists pages on opioid prescribing: https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain-medicine/opioids-awar... |