Thread by @ravensspirit68

1-Note that even Jeff Sessions, the same person who told people to 'just take an aspirin and go to bed', signed on to the Pain Relief Promotion Act in 2000.
We never got to where pain was being adequately treated before the anti-opioid agenda kicked in.
govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CH…

"The Pain Relief Promotion Act has two main purposes. First, it encourages practitioners to prescribe and administer controlled substances to relieve pain and discomfort."
#OpioidsSaveLives

"Practitioners should be encouraged to treat pain aggressively even when the treatment may increase the risk of death."

"In other words, aggressive pain management should be
encouraged and assisted suicide using federally controlled substances should not be permitted under any circumstances."

"It is about alleviating pain. These are federally controlled substances.They are very strong. They can be deadly. They can alleviate pain, and we say by all means they should be used to alleviate pain, and these are controlled by the Federal Government"... (since 1914)"

"That Act (Harrison Act) has been in existence for 30 years and it says that these very strong substances can be used for legitimate medical purposes."

"We state very clearly in the legislation and by your amendment, by the legislation that we have been working on, that alleviating pain is a legitimate medical purpose."

"Let us make it possible to use these very strong drugs. Let us even encourage the use of these very strong drugs to alleviate pain..."

The bill: Provides an additional ``safe-harbor'' for physicians by establishing, for the first time in federal law, that under the Controlled Substances Act the relief of pain and discomfort is a ``legitimate medical purpose'',

"even if the large doses used in treating pain may increase the risk of death (sometimes called the
principle double effect)."

I assert that the mandate to treat pain coincided with societal factors that led to an increase in drug/alcohol use and that prescribing practices had little to no influence in the increase in ODs crisis we saw unfold in our country.

In fact, restrictions that began around 2005 are far more likely drivers of ODs as it created another wave in a perfect storm, as prohibition usually does, as prohibition leads to a more deadly drug supply for those who seek drugs to use.

We've now borne witness to the FACT that restrictions on treating pain has had NO effect on reducing OD deaths in the United States.
Let me be clear, it is a FACT that despite draconian restrictions on MDs treating pain, ODs have continued to skyrocket, alongside suicides. 😔

This is a window on what prohibition and a doomed to fail drug war produces. 🧐
Tens of millions in pain left in agony, and people who use drugs recreationally dying in droves due to a deadly drug supply.
EPIC GOV FAIL.