The government first needs to learn & understand the difference between narcotic street drug abuse addiction & addiction behavior. The difference is clearly & completely different from those dependent on prescription opioid medications for strictly necessary medical reasons. A diabetic is not addicted to insulin but they are dependent to maintain a good quality of health & life. Patients that are dependent on opioids for medical use are no different. Pain patients have been studied repeatedly and those that have been on long term therapy only end in addiction 2% of the time. The opioid problem is a narcotics problem it does not come from medical use of opioids. The CDC mislabeled & blamed medical opioids as the problem for Narcotic street drugs abuse, but even though the CDC have since admitted they incorrectly labeled them as medical opioids & doubled their numbers making it all appear even more out of control then it is. The misinformation continues. It has been kept alive with a never ending flow of constant misinformation in the media leaving out the facts leaving out the positive patients responses that medical use of opioids has been found for them. How in study after study there is only an addiction rate of 2% meaning 98% of patients are having great success without issues of abuse is being ignored. With the continued idea of medical opioids at fault for all drug problems is severely hurting those that are benefiting from treatment with these medications. But will change nothing for resolving the street drug abuse problems. The government dictating to doctors how to do their job, the discrimination of patients prescribed medical opioids for proven medical reasons with good cause are being negatively effected. Medically under treated or left untreated causing unnecessary pain & suffering the deaths of way too many of these innocent pain patients. Families are being destroyed all because of the continued misinformation chain causing great suffering and the death of their loved ones. This countries attack on opioid medications has been so blown out of proportion needs reeled back in. The medical needs of patients should be left to the doctors and patients to making the best health care decisions for themselves not some rule or law that knows nothing about any of these patients being treated. No other patients with any other disease except those in chronic pain have been allowed to be so terribly treated, ignored and so abused by the public & government agencies. It serves no purpose to abuse these pain patients it's only making their difficult lives that much more difficult and causing unimaginable suffering for those loosing their medical treatment all because of false fears. It is a disgrace that this countries people who are deliberately allowing this to continue & promoting such poor treatment of the chronically ill. While pain patients are always left out of the discussion except to be blamed & never allowed to even defend themselves. Why is it the pain community is consistently left out of every discussion? One of the largest contributors to the problems for the current rise in drugs on the street stem from people trying to escape the stress & money troubles that are the most common problem for most everyone now a days. The cause of much of the drug abuse being increased is the high unemployment rates, families are struggling just to buy food & pay the bills, many can't survive & many are having to combine adult kids with parents to survive financially. People are stressed , unhappy, struggling with money issues on all levels. People go looking for an escape from the difficulties of life & are using street drugs with the promise of a cheap escape from their lives their problems. This is a choice they made. They end up hooked or over dose and now everyone wants someone to blame. Until everyone is willing to face the truth take responsibility for their own actions. Until we quit looking to blame everyone else & everything else other then the person themselves. This will only continue and get worse. No matter what this still is not a government problem to fix. It starts at home in schools to educate and counseling & making drug use no longer a crime but offer assistance for drug rehabilitation has a better chance of making a difference. Maybe we should consider the legalization as other countries have and have had great success with lowered drug abuse and lowered crime rates. Prohibition doesn't work it creates prisoners & jails & death. Lets not continue repeating the same mistakes over and over as a country we should be better then this kind of horrid treatment for our ill and vulnerable.

Government waste. Real unemployment is still a problem. Workplace discrimination is. Immigration is. People found a new way to get high... Throwing money into fighting drugs is never the answer. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for those who voluntarily overdose.

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