Opioid Epidemic from a cop and pain patient's perspect

[Hunter]

I've seen the opioid epidemic as a cop. Living it is even worse.

Good read – it’s great to hear from people who have experienced an issue from both sides.

After four decades of all-out war on illicit drug use, scoring street heroin is still far simpler than filling a legal prescription at an authorized dispensary. How can this be considered a success?

Of course, as a cop, I’m not free to even consider marijuana — which effectively managed my father’s pain and nausea when he was dying of cancer. Even if it were legal in my state — it is not — it would still be against department policy. In addition to my doctors’ drug tests, I’m also subject to drug testing on the job. Which means something I believe truly is effective against pain, and has fewer side effects than opioids, is not available to me.

[nicholas]

What a great article. His struggles echo some things I’ve heard from friends struggling with back pain. One of them cannot work and is on disability. His pain management contract specifies that the pain clinic can call him up anytime and he has to be at the clinic within an hour for a full audit of his prescriptions and number of pills he has left. Due to his reduced family income, they only have one car which his wife uses to get to work. He’s in rural Kentucky and had no other transportation options so he failed to meet the deadline and the pain clinic cut him off. He had to go cold turkey and ration his pills until he could get into another pain management program. And of course Kentucky has no medical cannabis option for him.