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This

100% of the dopers I have known were previously shit heads already.

True story, before I start my rant...while I was in Walter Reed after getting blown up, they had me on morphine and percocet.
My wife asked the DOCTORS "aren't you worried about getting him addicted to this stuff?"
The doctor's response was "Our first priority is getting his pain under control. We can deal with addiction later if we need to."
To which my wife responded "Yeah, no. That's not going to happen. I know my husband and he can push through the pain. Get him off that shit NOW because I'm not going dealing his him being a drug addict after this."

Quoted:
Mr Trump said on Thursday: "More people are dying from drug overdoses today than from gun homicides and motor vehicles combined.
"These overdoses are driven by a massive increase in addiction to prescription painkillers, heroin and other opioids."
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions equated the opioid epidemic to a  personal failing by many Americans who cannot “say no” to drugs on  Thursday, and he said that marijuana could be serving as a gateway to the problem. “People should say no to drug use. They have got to protect themselves first,” he said during a
question-and-answer session at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.
Sessions made his comments ahead of President Donald Trump’s declaration that the opioid crisis a public health emergency, a move that will redirect federal resources to help combat the problem.
But in response to a question about how best to combat the epidemic, Sessions cast the problem in a moral light.
“I do think that this whole country needs to not be so lackadaisical about drugs,” he said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-opioids-sessions/u-s-attorney-general-says-people-should-just-say-no-to-opioids-idUSKBN1CV2ZG

View Quote

Yes... people should say no. But they don't want to. People want to not be in pain and the doctor's that get kickbacks from big pharma prescribe this shit instead of something non-addictive.
But yeah... let all of the patients shoulder the blame for this.

And marijuana is a gateway drug? Where's the medical research to prove that BS?

This problem was allowed to happen because the government didn't regulate a drug they HAD to know would be addictive. If the FDA didn't know that prescription drugs containing OPIUM derivatives then the FDA should go away. If the DEA didn't know that these drugs should be more tightly regulated, they should go away. Why didn't they? Because the the pharma lobby is the biggest of them all. Because the pharma industry was given too much power.

So now... tax payer money that has been funding two failed agencies, and has probably been funding pharma research through grants... will get MORE funding to fix they problem they pretty much created. Good job!!

Now, our money, NOT the pharma and medical industry that created this problem, will go to treatment and research. Out fucking standing!!!

Makes one wonder [affix your tin foil hat now] if we sent troops, in some 6 degrees of separation kind of way, to protect the opium fields in Afghanistan.

16:33 - DoJ is pursing law suits against people AND companies. So... will the companies that they prosecute be the funding source for all of the treatment and research, or will those companies simply fold up, claim bankruptcy, and be re-born under a new name without paying out a dime for the damage they caused?

17:19 - Giving first responders the tools they need to keep junkies alive. I have a better solution... round them up and put them to work building the wall. Make them sweat it out of their systems with some good hard work.

18:00 - We're going to be spending lots of money on coming up with a non-addictive solution. I have a cheaper solution... give them all straws and tell them to suck it the fuck up.

A few years ago, as more and more states legalized marijuana in some form or another, I told my wife this was coming.  The Govt., from enforcement to regulatory agencies, and big Pharma, were going to start losing money.  And they were going to find a new boogey-man to keep that cash flow coming.  They got it.  

Neither of us can take any kind of Aspirin or NSAID, her because of a DVT suffered in 03 and me because of my genetic disorder that has caused me to lose the central vision in my left eye and suffer two bleeds to the right, from macular degeneration.  That means our pain management options are limited to Tylenol and Opioids.  Tylenol is useless for chronic pain, and I have been waiting over 5 years for the V.A. to get off their asses and fix my hip.  My wife was hit by a truck when she was 3, messing up her pelvis.  She cannot deliver children naturally, both of my children having to be born by C-Section.  She has battled cancer, resulting in the removal of the lower lobe of her left lung, a few more DVT's, the installation of a filter to protect her heart from clots, is on cumadin for life, had a hysterectomy, two neck surgeries and two more on her hip and lower back area.  Toss in the usual aches and pains of age.  It is not fun.  

Pain management should be between the doctor and the patient and Govt. needs to stay out of it.  Every time I get a shot in my eye, I see people, my age and older (not too many youngsters have macular degeneration) who are in the same boat I am, getting older, dealing with the aches and pains of age, and having very few options.  When it hurts just to walk to the bathroom, ya gotta do something.  If you cannot take what most of the rest of the population can take, what the hell do you do?  There are perhaps 85-150 thousand people on this planet who have Psuedoxanthoma Elasticum, the disorder I have.  How big a voice do you think we have?  

But it's more important to save junkies I guess.  And keep that war on drugs humming along, chewing up our tax dollars.  You want to end the cartels, stop the flow of illegal narcotics, start bombing the motherfuckers behind it.  Just leave patients alone.  And just make weed legal nationwide and be done with it.

Yay small government! This is what deregulation looks like.

This is GD, there is no place for rational thought here. Every problem must be blamed on an easily identifiable scapegoat that doesn't interfere with free market capitalism. Nuance and knowledge of subject matter are for commies & fags.

It's hard to believe we are doubling down on this emotional and crazy failure we call "the war on drugs".  They are taking my tax dollars and pouring it into a plan that creates violent drug gangs while eroding the constitution.  I. DON'T. APPROVE.

The .gov is solely responsible for the "heroin epidemic"

If they didn't crack down on doctors prescribing pain killers then this never would have happened

Remember kids:

THE GOVERNMENT ALWAYS CREATES MORE PROBLEMS AS THE END RESULTS WHEN THEY TRY AND "FIX SOMETHING"