thanks for sharing...fortunately I don't take opiates or pain medicines regularly so it doesn't effect me. I used to work in the medical field for several years & I can understand how many people "play sick" to abuse pain meds though, so in that aspect drug testing & limiting scripts IS a very good idea....however, it will make it more difficult for the people who really need them, to be able to obtain scripts...it usually only takes a few to ruin things for everyone!

Does any body remember the people who died painful deaths during they years of "fear" to give someone pain medication because they might get "addicted to it".

When I was a child,I remember my uncle died a horribly painful death because in those days they were afraid to give terminal patients pain pills because they could become addicted.

When my turn came to be the caretaker of my loved ones it was my goal that they would die with dignity.
in 1998 I cared for my father and my sister as they died of pancreatic cancer.
A very painful cancer, but I was able to keep them both comfortable to the end.
My mother passed of CHF, but went thru "system shut down" and those last weeks I was able to keep her comfortable with the medication that hospice provided.

The one thing I want is to die with dignity and not to suffer pain.
I hope we aren't going back to those times of people having to suffer horribly. I don't know how to stop this sort of thing, but I hope it is stopped before we go back to the days of suffering death.

As for chronic pain. I live that. and I am treated for it.
Today I am able to live independently and function because of the medication I have. Take that away and I fear what my life would be. I know I wouldn't be able to live on my own or care for myself.

This is like gun laws; backwards if you ask me.
outlawing the drug isn't going to stop drug abuse....it's only going to keep the people that need them from being able to get them.
stupidity & ignorance seem to manufacture laws.

We have strict gun laws here and it works for us only because of cultural reasons,,,,,YET we are also facing exactly this same fear mongering, re-pain meds and addiction....

I think it goes deeper than that but cannot pin the reason down...My mother died in agony and begged me ask the doctor to let her go.....but there were no choices in those days and as he said.....He would be charged with murder/manslaughter/whatever they charge someone who does it....

Now i can chose not to be kept alive by filling out some form or other, but i have been too lazy to follow it up...

Once i no longer have any dignity left, im out of here....