Why is it so hard to get some prescription drugs in the needed quantities?

[nihil]

Hmmmm,

Addiction certainly happens................if you are terminally ill, then it doesn't really matter......... and I watched my mother die of cancer, so spare the ignorant comments huh?

Similarly, those in chronic pain will possibly if not probably become addicted to the painkillers if only because they are addicted to NOT being in pain ....................this is far removed from being addicted to "recreational drugs".............. and don't think that these things don't have side effects, they do!!! it is just that those are not as bad as the pain.

[idmismatch]

Apologies, I digressed when gore made his astoundingly ignorant remark that all addiction is harmless. The fact that he cited alcoholism as his example made me think that he wanted to expand this discussion into one about all drugs, and I won't/can't accept any assertion that alcoholism is harmless.

Despie my better judgement however I agree with gore's original post to quite some extent (getting back to the original discussion and trying to avoid the daft views that all drugs should be made legal and possibly freely available). *If* his assertions are correct (doctors being jailed for trying to do thair job) then it's a bloody alarming situation. There probably is a large amount of abuse of the system (i.e. addicts just trying to get hold of controlled drugs) which should be stopped, as these people need help, not more drugs. I certainly agree that it's a bad thing that honest medics are being scared away from trying to effectively relieve pain.

I don't have a complete solution, but a step in the right direction would be a slight loosening in the way the laws are enforced.

What annoys me is when people take a serious situation (like this) and try to use it to suggest that all drugs are great to use and everyone should be given full access to them. Pathetic and let's face it - childish.

[nihil]

Hey, idmismatch ,

Alcoholism is the addiction to recreational drugs? I think that the way gore and I were trying to take the thread was along the lines of the availability of prescription ethical pharmaceuticals for a relatively small proportion of the population?.............the sick?

[idmismatch]

I *have* apologised for digressing in response to gore's comment of "The only time addiction is a problem is when it's outlawed. Think for example, of the alcoholics during prohibition. They had no probelms in life until Uncle Sam stuck his head up his ass AGAIN." - but having seen the damage that alcoholism can do to an individual and people around them I felt I had to respond. I understand I shouldn't have fed the troll, sorry!

I also agreed with the sentiment behind gore's OP....

Yes, the people who *need* real painkillers should have them (prescribed for them appropriately), and I agree that when this doesn't happen (through medics being scared to do so) it's a real problem. It just annoyed me when I saw ignorance rear its ugly head.

[gore]

Actually I wasn't sure who you were or what you were going for, hell, ask anyone in here, I don't drink a whole lot, maybe once a year and I don't stand up for alcohol. I'v said multiple times I believe it to be the most dangerouse of all drugs.

And yes, there are Drs actually being jailed and patients too, for pain.

That's why in one state a lone 17 people commited suicide. They were in to much pain and couldn't get help, so they took it into their own hands.

The DEA is DAMN lucky I'm not the DA, or they would be at this moment being served with Manslaughter 2. (They were the cause of 17 people dying because of their reckless endangerment, they deserve a sentence, not a badge).

[Galdron]

Just spoke with someone who is in incredible pain from a recent injury, and I now realize what a bunch of BULLSHIT it is for people who are actually injured to recieve the needed Meds! Are we at a point in this country where Doctors are so paranoid about lawsuits that they deny the medication needed by truly legit. patients?

WTF????????????????????????






EDIT! Should be the Hypocrytic Oath!


swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

[Moira]

I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis so I'm no stranger to strong painkillers, and I have to say the skewed thinking surrounding the whole drug issue annoys me intensely. I'll be perfectly honest, I'll take dihydrocodeine (the UK equivalent of vicodin roughly) because I like the effect. Sure, it's a good painkiller as well, but there are an awful lot of people who get it prescribed for medical reasons and completely deny that there are times they'll use it for the "feelgood factor".

Having said that, what are the real dangers of these hydrocodone type drugs? The biggest problem with taking opiates is wanting more. While the withdrawal experienced after suddenly stopping taking them regularly is not on the scale of morphine or heroin, it's still not a fun time and whether or not your medical condition requires pain treatment, that alone would send you back to the doctors for another script.

But none of this comes near to the problems associated with the hard drug alcohol, which is not only widely accepted but positively encouraged, especially among young people in my area of the world. It's completely OK to come to work wrecked with a hangover for instance, but the same inability to do your job due to drug use would lead to instant dismissal. Doctors are starting to see younger and younger people develop cirrhosis of the liver, all alcohol related.

I agree caution needs to be exercised when prescribing opiates, even weak opiates like codeine. But it's taken to stupid extremes. I tried to buy some solpadeine the other day (500mg paracetamol 8mg codeine phos) and couldn't because the pharmacist was on their lunch break. I could have bought as much paracetamol as I wanted! The fact that far more people are admitted to hospital due to paracetamol overdoses than codeine seems lost on the people who make these rules. 8mg codeine phosphate is such a piffling amount anyway, that I'd have killed myself on the paracetamol long before overdosing on the codeine. Yet it was the codeine that needed a pharmacist present before I could buy it. Why? Because codeine actually makes you feel good and that's a sin.

To my mind, alcohol is one of the most stupid drugs of the lot. Yet everyone has the right to go out and get hammered if they so wish, and that's how it should be. I just think the same lack of restriction should apply to other drugs, particularly where there's a medical need or for the softer recreational drugs. However we live in a nanny state where nobody is allowed to take responsibility for their actions and adults are not allowed to decide what they can or cannot do to their own bodies.

[gore]

Look on the bright side; you can actually buy Codeine over the counter. Here ni the "Land of the free" even that little 8MGs of Codeine is prescription.

And for the heads up, yes, you'd die from Aceteminophen LONG before Codeine. Generally 800 MGs is the LD50 of Codeine, and for Hydrocodone, the ingrediant in Vicodin, Lortab, and others, it's... A lot.

It takes 4 full bottles of Vicodin for there to be enough Hydrocodone to kill a premature born 2 pound Baby. Yet just one bottle worth has enough of the Tylenol in it to kill a full grown man.

Also note Opiates have no long term side effects other than addiction. Opiates don't effect any of the bodies internal organs nor do they do any damage to the human body unless there is an OD of which isn't easy unless it's an illegal drug.

The reason people OD on Opiates most of the time, is because they either do one of two things:

1. They aren't legal, like Heroin or Opium, meaning there isn't a sticker on the bottle telling you how much is safe to tak.

2. They take OxyContin (Time released Percocet / Oxycodone) and crush it for a Heroin like high, which can kill you because the time release is broken and a large amount of it hits all at once.

Back when Heroin was legal and over the counter people sure as hell weren't dying from an OD. It came in a bottle and you knew how much was safe to take and how pure it was.

The same thing happened with alcohol during prohibition. The govt outlawed it and so people made it at home and sold it for more than 10X the usual price and since most of these people only cared about the money they didn't brew it properly.

Bathtub Gin didn't get it's name because it sounded cute, it was given that name because it was Gin made in a Bathtub along with all the dirt and other non clean things found in a bath tub.
People died from drinking this crap quality alcohol just as they do now from the crap quality drugs people make for profit only.

It used to eb easy to tell for Opiates how pure something was by tasting it, because Opiates taste bitter. Believe me, I just chewed up 4 Vicodin ES, it's bitter, yet now I can finally type since pulling a muscle in my spine.

But now people add things to it to make the taste bitter so there isn't a way to tell how pure it is. Therefore, people don't know how much to use and OD.

I know a lot of people on AO disagree, but I don't care, if you want proof of how right I am, make your own Aspirin or Tylenol, and take some for a head ache. 10.00 says you'll drop dead of an OD, but since they are both legal, you can buy it in a store in a bottle with how much is safe right on the label, same thing with illegal drugs. The laws against them make them more dangerous then the drugs themselves could ever be.

Oh and the new anti drug commercial on TV recently of a woman making meth in her home while the people upstairs have a small child playing injesting the chemicals... Blame the DEA, that stuff was easy to get back in WW2 and now they cracked down on it so people just make the **** at home and since the chemicals are explosive obviously, people are killed making it.

Also, as a side note, price, people bitch and whine all the time that drug addiction makes people live on the street and destroys their lives. That's bullshit.

The laws against them however, do actually do that. Want more proof? $1,000.00 worth of Street Cocaine, costs $1.00 to make. But since it's illegal, people can charge whatever they want.

If the govt learned it's lesson from prohibition they'd legalise that and Opiates and put them over the counter and tax the **** out of them, and they would STILL be cheaper than what they are now.

It's easy to make your own Morphine. Go to the spice rack isle of a store, buy Poppy Seeds, they are usually Persian Blue Poppy plant seeds, sprinkle them on the dirt, give them good sun light and water and in two weeks they sprout and start producing Morphine.

When the flowers bloom, they last about 3 days, after the petals fall off, wait two weeks then scrape the pods gently with a knife or pin, and the white stuff that oozes out is Pure Opium. It contains Morphine, Codeine, and Thebaine.

Just scrape them and let it sit and dry on the pod, it turns brown, and gooey, peel it off with a butter knife. You've now broken the law. You've also got pure Opium at the same time.

Amazing isn't it? The pods contain thousands of seeds and you don't even need to plant them, and the next year you'll have thousands of them for every seed you planted, and to think, it costed you $3.00 US to buy thousands of seeds, each making a plant sprout, worth on the street, about $500.00.

THAT is why drug dealers don't need to get a job, something costing them $1.00 sells for $1,000.00.

See the problem now? For the record, I don't sell, I have chronic back pains, and bone problems, and can't get even Tylenol with Codeine in this country. My Dr checked me out and wouldn't give me anymore pain killers even though the muscle near my spine is currently in a knot.

Yet I can drive 5 minutes to Canada and get Codeine right over the counter. It's sad that in this country I can't get anything I actually need from a Dr yet in any other country I can buy it over the counter.

That's one of many reasons I hate living here. It's perfectly legal for letting a patient suffer but for the patient to say enough is enough and do something to help themselves out, they go to prison.

Drug laws are also mostly not Constitutional. Freedom of Religion, Life, Liberty, and the Persuit of Happiness.

God made all seed bearing plants and in the Bible it says all seed bearing plants may be used for food. Therefore, Drug laws are against the law.

Some people have told me just because God put them here doesn't mean God wanted us using them.

Well that's not true either, every Human on the planet is born with Opiate receptors in their brain and spine, the sole purpose of this is to process Opiates. There are also other areas in the Human body that do nothing more than react when an Opiate is given.

also for the SxE anti drug people who say Opiates won't make you Happy, because it's chemical... Well Happiness itself is an emotion caused by the same chemicals that Opiates release, so therefore, YES IT IS A REAL HAPPY.

/rant.

-Dr. Gore, MD. (I should be a Dr but I wouldn't be in the US).

For anyone here who IS a Dr and is reading what I've said with disgust, remember you took the oath of Hippocrates. Your job is to help patients, not make them suffer. And if anyone is here from the DEA, choke on my name.

And to Moira, it's nice to see someone who's actually got the balls to show what they believe in and stand up for it. Generally when it comes to these drug posts I'm by myself fighting for what I believe in.

Addicts has 300 I'm drunk threads frmo members which are perfectly fine, yet one saying I'm stoned would be closed and flamed.

And as pointed out by Moira, Alcohol is the MOST dangerous drug known to man. It attacks EVERY organ in the Human Body. It does kill Brain Cells, they don't come back, yet pot is the drug blames from frying someone's mind? Haha.

[Moira]

Yes I know that in the States a lot of things are illegal that we can buy over here. Piperazine products, anything containing codeine, and until recently we could click a button and get fresh shrooms delivered to the door. They're now class A, but in the US that was always the case.

Alcohol can cause untold misery and violence - and this is just the impact of living with an alcohol abuser. How many destroyed marriages are there due to people taking legally prescribed hydrocodone? I'm not saying drugs shouldn't be treated with respect - dihydrocodeine has teeth! - but blind panic is not appropriate either. The tragedies associated with drug deaths (and there are far fewer deaths than caused by smoking or alcohol) are not normally due to the drug itself - more the lifestyle it gets you leading. The people you associate with, the rubbish that is available on the street and the "forbidden fruit" appeal that leads people to go overboard when they do get hold of something normally not available.

So called drug education often does more harm than good. If you tell people that a particular drug has all sorts of undesirable effects and does untold harm, and then people take it and realise that actually, that isn't the case, what could be a very persuasive argument is lost straight away. Far better to tell people that yes, drugs will make them feel good, but there can be a payback. Set out the disadvantages and the advantages of using drugs and tell people the truth. Because it was the "do gooders" who killed Leah Betts, not the Ecstasy she took. They managed to instill the idea that E caused dehydration at dangerous levels and led to her drinking water that due to the nature of the drug she'd taken, her kidneys were unable to cope with.

[nihil]

Moira,

My friend gore and I have had interesting discussions on this subject.............. I loved it when he told me that one of my prize winning cacti would have got me 5 years for possession in the US.

Also, he was amused when I messaged him that there was a BBC programme where they were in some public gardens discussing the opium poppies...........I have quite a few, they seem to do well here for some reason................ even our local council can grow them!

Your problem is just a quirk in our laws............ only the pharmacist can sell certain OTC medications............ a few cough mixtures come to mind, and Dr. Collis Brown's stomach medication (morphine sulphate?). Also, you have to be 18 to sell alcohol to someone, even if they are 90!

Same sort of laws apply to petrol and diesel............... I worked in a garage when I was at university