How opioid hysteria and moral panic worsened the opioid crisis

A moral panic is happening in the United States right now, and it’s the so-called “opioid crisis” or “opioid epidemic” that pops up daily in the news. Reporters can be heard lamenting that the sky is falling and that anyone and everyone is addicted to prescription drugs. Of course, we know that isn’t true, but the opioid hysteria continues.

Opioid hysteria and addiction as a moral panic

What is a moral panic?

A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. Typically, a moral panic is perpetuated by the news media, fueled by politicians, and often results in the passage of new laws or policies that target the source of the panic.

From the very beginning, addiction should have been a public health issue, but instead, there was panic. “Addiction is ruining people’s lives everywhere,” screams the media who develop the narrative myth that anyone can get addicted from a trip to the dentist and end up dying at a crack house. Sobbing parents appear on the news begging politicians to do something, anything.

As emotions ramp up what’s the next option in a moral panic? Going too far by fixing the addict label to people who aren’t addicted.

Related posts:

How the opioid crisis can lead those with chronic to suicide

  Pain warrior documentary: The other side of the opioid crisis

The real opioid crisis is what’s happening to people with chronic pain

The shutting down of “pill mills” and the beginning of opioid hysteria

Once upon a time in the 2000s pill mills still existed. Florida especially had a problem, and so they began an initiative to shut them down in 2010.  This was a good thing because there really was a problem with giving pain pills to people not in pain. Unfortunately, taking the hint from the failed “War on Drugs,” policymakers made drugs and opioid addiction a criminal issue, instead of a public health issue.

Once the pill mills shut down, the policymakers and medical community had the opportunity to turn their focus to the real problem. They could have set up a system to support people with addiction. They could have offered treatment and counseling, and they could have addressed the societal problems leading to addiction, but they didn’t because the opioid crisis became a moral panic.

Drugs and overprescription of opioids should have been a public health issue, but politicians made them a criminal issue instead. This furthered addiction rates and fueled the increase in overdose deaths. Share on X

Chronic pain, the opioid crisis, and a moral panic lead to opioid hysteria

Now everyone is panicking about opioids and it’s time for politicians and celebrities to get involved.

Because some people with addiction use pain medicine off label, that must mean everyone abuses pain medicine. Who uses pain medicine the most? People with chronic pain. Sure, they only have a less than 1% rate of addiction, but in a moral panic, righteousness is on the side of the panicking. So, medical professionals and politicians overcorrect and target people in pain. The general idea seems to be that chronic pain patients are weak-minded and weak-willed, just like people with addiction  (that is true for neither population). Together they are running amok destroying the country and life as we know it. Don’t believe me? Check out this guy’s Twitter feed where he openly calls people with chronic pain “opioid-dependent patients” who are being manipulated by “Big Pharma.”

So the pain patients had to be stopped too. However, too many patients didn’t show enough signs of addiction. Some too many patients were suffering from legitimate pain diagnosed by their doctors.  So pain patients needed their souls saved by the great and mighty PROP (Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing) leaders. They came up with the idea to rid the earth of opioids forever and to gaslight patients just like they did to people experiencing addiction. They decided that pain was no longer pain.

We all know pain is a warning signal to our body that something is wrong. When your body hurts, there’s always a reason even if you can’t see it. Thanks to the #opioidhysteria, pain is no longer pain, it's #addiction or mental illness. Share on X

The definition of pain is called into question

It sounds crazy because we all know what pain is. We know it’s a warning signal to our body that something is wrong. When your body hurts, there’s always a reason even if you can’t see it. However, the idea behind PROP is to gaslight people by telling them their pain is all in their minds. Or if it’s not, they need to practice “pain acceptance.”

This is not the first time doctors have tried to pretend that pain isn’t real. For centuries women were told their pain wasn’t real. Meanwhile, half of the medical students believe black people feel less pain than white people.  This is CURRENT DAY, not a hundred years ago.  So why not ramp things up and say that pain doesn’t exist for anyone.

How the opioid hysteria and moral panic worsened the opioid crisis

Meanwhile, people with addiction are suffering and dying on the streets because they don’t have access to safer prescription drugs. Instead, they’re taking dangerous illicit fentanyl from China which has increased the overdose rates. So people with addiction die due to dangerous drugs, and people in pain die because of their endless suffering.

Thanks to the #opioidcrisis people with #addiction die due to dangerous drugs, and people in pain die because of their endless suffering. Meanwhile, medical professionals hop onto social media to mock those in pain. Share on X

Simultaneously, the medical community hops onto social media to make fun of people who are suffering. Not surprisingly they get nasty when the people they mock react poorly. They believe they’re the victims in this situation. Society finds it comforting to know that people experiencing pain and addiction are being appropriately punished for their bad behavior.

That is the whole point of moral panic after all.

Society finds it comforting to know that people experiencing #pain and #addiction are being appropriately punished for their bad behavior. Share on X

 

 

*This is an incredibly complex issue that I’ve written about more than I can count. I do not have room to go into the complete history of moral panics or opioids. If you’re curious, I’d ask you to listen to pain patients, people with addiction, and their doctors before you listen to the moral panickers.

I have in the past been much harder on people with addiction and I regret that. I’m trying to go back and update some of my older posts with the correct language.