When Will the Madness Stop?

Clear and concise article, Stephen. Your encouraging the medical profession to accept greater responsibility is especially appreciated. As recipient of three organ transplants, I am grateful for the powerful daily medications which have enabled me to live the past eighteen years. That said, I am deeply disturbed by uncountable thousands of lives lost or severely impaired, together with the incidental collateral damage to others, which result from greed-driven societal influences. The human carnage of cigarette smoking has been dramatically reduced over the past fifty years by a concerted message of awareness, and by protecting the public from the bombardment of advertising. Similar steps with pharmaceuticals would be a good start to a complex challenge which entangles international cartels, New York Stock Exchange icons, street dealers and the medical profession. Why should billions be spent presenting drugs as a curative solution, and enticing the under-educated public to ask for prescription drugs? This suggestion is not near a complete answer; but greater public awareness and education, in combination with the reduction of the greed factor for drug producers and suppliers, are solid principles to build a revised operating system for the humanitarian use of drugs.

I just watched a news report where the heroin is running ramped in the affluent suburbs of Marietta, Johns creek and Alpharetta. As a mother this is terrifying.

The mother wanted his pain pills just in case of what? She needed them? That's pretty brazen. The addiction epidemic is out of control. Unfortunately, this crisis and the government's response to it has had terrible negative outcomes for those who really need pain medicine and are using it correctly. It's a difficult situation to be sure but there has to a better way of reducing unnecessary or abusive drug usage yet allowing those who require strong pain management to live a minimum quality of life to keep access to it.

Amen.