Thank you for the insightful response. Very depressing. It's terrifying that in the future I could be denied medication because I did too much research.
I have the impression that the UK was more progressive with drugs, it's just the legislation that hasn't kept up. But who knows if this applies to medicine.
Yeah, it is a sad state of affairs.
The problem with controlling narcotics is a double-edged sword. Yes, it does probably prevent some new addicts from being formed, but it also prevents people who are in legitimate pain from getting the help they need. Not everybody who takes a couple of Percocet becomes an addict.
I think in order for patients to get what they need, legal rescheduling of drugs, and who can prescribe those, would need to be done.
If I'm a chronic pain patient who needs hundreds of milligrams of morphine per day, I should probably be seeing a specialist who is very specifically trained with narcotics, the doctor should be trained specifically for "heavy" narcotics. Make stuff like that unable to be prescribed by regular physicians in any real quantity. It shouldn't be hard to get if you need it, and the regular doctor shouldn't have to worry about if he's going to get into trouble for prescribing it, because he's referring to a trained professional with narcotics.
Then make the "lesser" (cut with Tylenol or IB or whatever) narcotics more freely available in small prescriptions from regular doctors.
If you go into the dentist with tooth pain, they try to fix it, prescribe you a blister 5-pack of Tylenol 3 or 5/325's, and tell you that if it continues to hurt you need to go see somebody who's trained in the use of narcotics. Same deal, go to the ER with back pain (which is probably the most common BS excuse for drugs), and the most you would possibly walk out with is that small blister pack, which should be very effective for legitimate pain until you can go see your specialist, while also not running a very high risk of addiction, or abuse potential. It would also keep people from wasting the emergency rooms time.
My wife did some continuing education courses on pain management techniques. Apparently a combination of an NSAID, Tylenol, and caffeine is just as effective as 10mg of morphine. If you add 1-3 mg of morphine to the mix, it's as effective at killing pain as like 5x the dose of just morphine (Don't quote me on those numbers, their ballpark, but not too far off)
Personally, I think you should be able to buy any of the "lesser" narcotics that can't be injected or snorted over the counter. They sell Sudafed, why not sell codeine? Dumb.
I'm not sure if it's still the case, but up until at least 2018 you could buy codine over the counter in the state of Virginia. As long as it's under certan total amount, and contains a certain mg/mg ratio of a "cut" like APAP or guaifenesin. I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like 250 mg per bottle or container. You have to sign the same Sudafed registry book, and it's 1 box or bottle per day. One of the stores had a pricing glitch that made it 97 cents, they never fixed the glitch, and I bought it for years at 97 cents a bottle. Good times.
Drug use should also be decriminalized, if all else fails and you want to medicate yourself, that's your god-given right.
