Stop The War On Chronic Pain Patients

In March of this year, the US Centers for Disease Control released “voluntary guidelines” on prescription of opioid medications to adults with chronic non-cancer pain. 

LINK to Article: Stop The War On Chronic Pain Patients

Unfortunately for 100 Million US chronic pain patients (estimated by the US Institute of Medicine), the document is in actuality neither voluntary nor a guideline.  

Combined with recent draconian laws in several US States, the CDC protocols have become a mandatory restrictive practice standard which is driving doctors out of pain management and patients into agony by the thousands.  

Patients are being involuntarily taken off opioids — or outright deserted without referral by doctors who fear US Drug Enforcement Administration prosecution if they continue to prescribe the only treatments which give many people even a marginal quality of life.

“Opioid Addiction Is a Huge Problem, but Pain Prescriptions Are Not the Cause” As recently explained in Scientific American by neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz

As Szalavitz points out, “efforts to reduce opioid deaths will fail unless we acknowledge that the problem is actually driven by illicit not medical use.” 
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My NOTE A huge majority of the 100,000,000 pain patients are not addicts they don't abuse their medications. 

For most the "high" from taking prescription opioids goes away in the first weeks of use, but all patients taking opioid medications for any length of time become physically dependent on them for pain control. It is critical to understand the meaning of addiction and not confuse it with tolerance and physical dependence LINK Addiction Tolerance and Physical Dependence 

We cannot reduce drug overdoses by denying pain relief to millions of patients who rely of opioid medications for pain relief. This will simply drive patients to the street and impure illicit drugs, or worse end the pain by ending their life.

It's sad when someone makes the decision to abuses opioids, and dies from an overdose it's sad. When a pain patient ends their life for lack of pain control it's a tragedy.