I mean nothing against you or your post at all, but in the spirit of constructive discussion and debate, I must say the following...
Constant promotion on mainstream media and building up the narrative behind this new term "Opioid Crisis," has been and always will be more destructive than good. For starters, the very idea alone that government agencies and politicians want to dictate to me what I am allowed to put into my body, is absolutely absurd on every level. When you really break it down, we grown adults, many of us at least partially educated, must go to a doctor and seek a permission slip, which we only receive if we are very lucky and successful at playing the silly game that must be played to have any hope at all at receiving it, just to be able to obtain the medicine that we need, and not only do we need this medicine, our basis for needing it is stronger than any science book can sort out, because it is OUR bodies that we are putting the medicine into, and thus WE know better than anyone in the world how it will effect us, personally. The problem however, goes far beyond that, by crying about this new "Opioid Crisis."
I have seem more lives ruined, not by the opioids themselves or the threat of accidental overdose, but instead by the ridiculous laws that prevent people from obtaining what they need. If, for example, a hydrocodone addict were able to go to the nearest drugstore and purchase his or her hydrocodone pills over the counter, then they could actually go about living their life without the constant and overwhelming threat of law enforcement, and especially the the threat of withdrawals during periods of time in which they cannot get a doctor to write a silly, child like permission slip to obtain what they desperately need. Make no mistake about it, the real "crisis" wen it comes to opioids, is the lack of accessibility. There would be hundreds of thousands of people who would still have jobs and be contributing, productive members of society if they had only had unhindered access to the medicine of their own choosing, when the needed that medicine the most. Instead, because now that every doctor in America is paranoid about writing a prescription for opioid based pain pills, these same people are moving toward illegal ways to obtain them, just so that they can make it to their jobs without getting so sick that they ultimately lose their jobs. In even worse scenarios, soccer moms that may have an innocent dependency of oxycodone one day, are now venturing into the city to score heroin, because we've reached a critical point where she can no longer count on her doctor to prescribe the pills. The snowball effect begins from there, as now the heroin dealers have moved into the suburbs to cater to the needs of those very soccer moms.
To sum it up, the "opioid crisis" narrative that is sweeping our country and even the world, is doing FAR MORE harm than good! The solution is to stop letting government agencies into the privacy of our own homes and let us live how we choose to live, just so as long as we do not harm or steal from our fellow citizens. My life and career was ruined, not because of opioid based pills. It was ruined because of existing and tightening laws that forced me into sickness, and to ice that terrible cake, I live with the very pain again that this miracle medicine had completely knocked out to begin with.
Live and let live! Get out of my medicine cabinet!
Thank you, and again, this comment is not at all personal toward the poster of this blog. Have a great day.