Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Skeptability | Politics in the ER: Five ways Doctors Decide You Are a Drug Seeker

This article is a must read and is spot on: Skeptability | Politics in the ER: Five ways Doctors Decide You Are a Drug Seeker If you're a chronic pain patient, and especially a young chronic pain patient, you know this all too well. ER doctors see patients so fleetingly. As such, they are mostly trying to make sure a process is completed, rather than a patient treated. They leave treatment to your GP. Their job is to stabilize you and get you on the road to recovery (out the door) or transferred to hospital and longer-term care (also out the door). Pain is just a symptom and an annoying one, because it instantly means the government looking over your shoulder. All narcotics require forms in triplicate with a DEA assigned number that allows the, to prescribe those narcotics. But use "too much" (and they never tell you where that line is) and you could lose your career, get sued, and all sorts of woe betides. It's easier to throw a patient out as a drug seeker than to treat them as a pain avoider. Which, of course, suits the DEA just fine. Nevermind that 50% of drug users outgrow their addiction, by their own statistics, they're winning the War on Drugs (and ensuring their pensions).

Me? I'm from Missouri, the "Show Me" state. I'd like the DEA to show me how they've "won." I want them to show me how this has made our society better. Because, that's the point, right? Keep the "bad" elements out of society and only the "good" elements will be left, right? Except, that's not exactly what happens, is it? Because these things are illegal, it automatically involves a criminal element, by definition. And if you can't go to the courts if someone robs you or screws you over on a contract, you automatically involve vigilante justice. That means violence will ensue. You've now made a problem three times as worse than when you started, just because you drew that line and said: "that's illegal."

And what do we do with drug addicts besides lock them up? Hopefully we avail them to a treatment program where ... wait, treatment? Doesn't that mean medical? Why, yes! Yes, it does mean medical: drug addiction is categorized as a disease of biological origin that responds favorably to a regular treatment program, just like any other disease. So what you're saying is, there are certain diseases that make you a criminal. Really? That's what we want to stand for in this country? And have other patients who are at a disadvantage but who aren't criminals caught in the cross-fire as well? Tell me you're starting to see what a bad idea this is...

But we couldn't do that! Decriminalize ALL drugs? There'd be *madness* and chaos in the streets. We would lose all control and descend into a sinful decadence as we all checked out of reality. Seriously? You mean to tell me everyone is just salivating over the idea of getting high, and the law is saving them from themselves? You really expect me to believe that in this day and age? When Portugal has done so, successfully, for over a decade? Even the CATO Institute says the DEA is essentially solving a problem it created, and we'd have been fine if we'd left well enough alone. They're a Prohibition dinosaur that needs to go extinct already. We have destroyed our medical system... for what? Stop people from feeling good in certain ways or amounts? What sort of payoff is that?

We really need to change the culture in this country and wake the hell up.

No comments:

Post a Comment