Pain Control Highlights Flawed U.S. War on Drugs

The 'War on Drugs' is a war that should have never been fought. Hindsight is 20/20, and while President Ronald Reagan had good intentions in implementing the war in the early 1980s, he was enough of a pragmatist to recognize that a policy had failed, even his own.

While Reagan exhibited a remarkable and admirable ability to adhere steadfastly to broad principles, such as limited government, low taxes, a strong defense, and maximized personal liberty, he could also demonstrate a sometimes surprising flexibility that led him to reverse some of his earlier decisions.

The war on drugs has been an abject failure, and had Reagan lived to see its effects, I have absolutely no doubt that he would say so and support changing the policy.

The U.S. has spend billions of dollars fighting this war that has proved to be an exercise in futility, resulting in a massive crime-and-violence plagued black market and a powerful gang of drug lords in this country and outside this country who are rolling in dough.

If the U.S. were to end the war on drugs and de-criminalize simple possession and use, upwards of 60% of the prison beds in the nation today would be freed up for the incarceration of violent criminals. As it stands, non-violent drug offenders occupy an estimated 60% of prison space at a time when we are bombarded with stories of 'prison overcrowding.'

That overcrowding would end immediately if we were to release from prison non-violent drug offenders. Our streets would be safer due to the fact that the truly violent criminals would stay locked up rather than be subject to early release or parole due to prison overcrowding.

But the single most telling example that American culture's handling of drugs is flawed rests in the manner in which we deal with pain control.

Many physicians within the U.S. have been slow to adopt adequate pain control measures for their patients. The stories are many, and some of them are frightening.

Yet hospitals within the U.S. have for years insisted that pain control is perhaps the central issue in adequate medical care, apart from a competent, accurate, and timely ability to address the immediate medical issue at hand.

This is why at each interval along the continuum of care a patient receives at a hospital, beginning at admission and ending at discharge, a regular assessment is made to determine the patient's pain level.

If you have had surgery in the past seven years, one of the very first questions you were asked upon awaking from surgery--if you remember those moments--is, 'Describe your pain level on a scale of one to ten.' And if your pain level is determined to be moderate to severe, based upon the scale, you are immediately given medications to control your pain.

Yet with some doctors and nurses across the land, the ability to release archaic notions about pain medications has been painfully slow. One of the most often expressed concerns is the notion that giving pain control medications will make addicts out of patients who have shown absolutely no history or propensity for becoming addicted to anything at all.

In spite of the problem of drug addiction in this country, the fact remains that the vast majority of Americans never exhibit the slightest hint of addiction to pain medications, which are dispensed liberally each day.

Further, there is a vast difference between addiction and dependence. A patient with rheumatoid arthritis, for example, is no doubt dependent on NSAIDs, i.e. nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which control pain and inflammation. Their very lives depend on a daily regimen of these medications. Yet few in the medical community would dare suggest that these patients are addicted to such medications.

Addiction is an entirely different animal, involving the overwhelming desire for more and more of the drug whether one needs it or not, and a downward spiral of being totally consumed by that drug to the neglect of life's necessities.

The mere fact that pain returns to an excruciating and unmanageable level when the drug is withdrawn is evidence that the patient is not addicted to that drug, but that the drug is needed to control the pain, or else the patient's quality of life reaches an intolerably low level.

America's phobia concerning pain medications is gradually abating, but there are still pockets of resistance. There is the true anecdote, for example, that a terminal cancer patient was refused pain medication, within one week of his death, for the fear that he would become an addict before he died.

Such antiquated views have no place in modern medical care. And to a great degree, our antiquated views toward 'the war on drugs' are also out of place in modern society.

Perhaps it is time for us to graduate up to the 21st century.

NOTICE! The opinion-editorial piece above is in no way intended to be used for medical advice or to provide guidance on the consumption of any drug for any purpose. For such advice or guidance, consult with a certified, competent medical professional.