Street fentynl continues to thrive while patients are suffering. Overdoses (& suicides) have only gotten worse since doctors started denying pain meds to patients in need.
It is easier to slowly take away people’s rights (LGBTQIA are also experiencing this) so people generally don’t see it coming until it’s too late. For pain management, it’s too late. Luckily LGBTQIA have allys. Pain patients? Not so much, addicts? Not so much. No one was outraged when the right to a quality of life was taken away from us like they are for LGBTQIA.
We screamed about this in the pain community when it was happening & no one listened.
Most everyone scrolled by rolling their eyes thinking we were addicts just wanting to take the “easy way out”. Maybe if there was outrage (besides those suffering from the outfall (and our voices were dismissed as addicts so we weren’t taken seriously) we wouldn’t be here. Maybe if people not in pain, stuck up for those of us in pain... it wouldn’t be the extent it is at.
More people are dying.
They played it well with the media demonizing pain meds, instead of street opioids, the real epidemic. People didn’t see it happening until it’s too late (and maybe even now you don’t see it, maybe you’re still rolling your eyes & scrolling past try—you likely will need pain management at some point in your life... and trust me, you won’t be rolling your eyes then when you’re told to take Tylenol).
Now we are seeing articles from NPR, even the CDC saying DRs “got the guidelines wrong”, because of the adverse effects & now lawsuits are being filed by those that can afford lawyers that will fight doctors. But it’s already too late.
The DEA is still going after doctors, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies....so they will not prescribe due to fear. If they do, insurance won’t approve or pharmacies refuse to fill them. Seriously, getting a prescription isn’t the only hurdle. Yes insurance & pharmacies now have the power to tell your doctor “no, you don’t need pain meds”. If insurance doesn’t approve, the pharmacy won’t let you pay cash. It’s...wild & so many have no clue.
Maybe if people didn’t roll their eyes & scroll by, and actually read what we shared, helped us fight when it started, we wouldn’t be here, but we are.
It’s common sense this is what would happen if you take pain meds away from people with horrific pain. It was obvious, but they did it anyway which points to the theory many disabled patients feel: this is a slow genocide to the most vulnerable groups of people: the addicted, disabled & elderly. The groups of people that are generally deeply looked down on in a capitalist society. Can’t work due to an illness or age? You have no worth here in the US.
This is the message we constantly get, especially through this administration.
Further proof of a more insidious plan to weed the disabled, elderly & addicts out? The constant attempts & some successes of cutting food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Who needs these services? That’s right, the disabled, elderly & addicted.
In the minds where money is all that matters (so most running our country), all we are, are liabilities, expenses. To many Conservatives & Republicans, they are footing the bill for our lives. They seem to have no problem footing the bill for giant corporations who can afford to pay taxes & thrive for generations over, but the elderly, disabled & addicted? Fuck us, right? We don’t contribute to society, we are seen as worthless.
I sure wouldn’t put it past the Trump Administration to want to get rid of vulnerable people, that can no longer be a rat in this rat race.
Just look at the human rights issues going on at our border.
