In the last six months, things have spiraled out of control with regards to the opioid crisis hysteria. The release of “Dopesick” has created armchair addiction and pain experts. They believe Dopesick is a documentary even though it’s an entertainment show. Don’t you dare tell them that though, they’ll accuse you of being an addict or being a shill for big pharma (however that works). With the opioid crisis, the line between fiction and reality is blurred, and that means that people in pain are suffering even more.
No one is listening to people with chronic pain, thanks to Dopesick
No one is listening to the people in pain crying out. Our voices are yelling louder and louder, and in stronger numbers than ever before, but they pretend we don’t exist. They listen and believe nothing but a TV show. The data never matters (it’s made up), people’s experiences never matter (either made up or irrelevant), but they’re convinced that Hollywood is the one telling the truth. Meanwhile, pain patients die as the misinformation from Dopesick spreads despite the evidence.
I’ve written a million blog posts disproving Dopesick’s claim that “Less than 1% of people in pain experience addiction” is a Sackler family lie. It’s not. Peer-reviewed studies continue to find this to be true. Dr. Nora Volkow and Dr.Thomas McLellan of the National Institute on Drug Abuse wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2016 that:
But that doesn’t help sell a Television show.
No one is listening to the people in pain crying out. Our voices are yelling louder and louder, and in stronger numbers than ever before, but people pretend we don't exist. Share on XMore about the opioid crisis
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Dopesick further demonizes the medication chronic pain patients need to survive
My favorite Dopesick addiction experts on social media are touting the “pain medication should never be used in any circumstances ever,” school of thought. It doesn’t matter to these people how many pain patients are dying of suicide due to pain. It doesn’t matter how many people face long and difficult recoveries from surgery due to pain torture. It doesn’t even matter that cancer patients are suffering with no treatment for their pain. In the name of saving people with addiction, the twitter experts are willing to kill pain patients along the way (this is directly from their mouths). Still, it’s not even about people with addiction any more. If it was we’d develop resources to actually help people with addictions instead of throwing them in jail. Meanwhile,
According to the American Council on Science and Health:
Prescriptions of opioids per 100 persons have dropped nearly 50 percent since 2012. Almost simultaneously the overdose rate has surged from roughly 40,000 in 2012 to 93,000 in 2020. Meanwhile, pain patients suffer from pain and mental anguish—especially veterans—as doctors abruptly taper or deny opioids to treat their pain.
Things are incredibly bleak for the pain community right now. There were some glimmers of progress before Dopesick, but those glimmers have faded away into the night, and it’s a dark one.
Dopesick’s narrative also contributes to the deaths of people experiencing addiction
I often wonder if thirty years from now children will learn in history class what a disaster the “opioid crisis” was and how the media perpetrated it. Will anyone ever bother to collect the statistics of how many pain patients die of suicide, and how many people with addiction die of tainted supply? Because in the name of “saving” people with addiction, they’re actually killing them. Removing safe drugs from the market creates poor quality replacements significantly likely to kill. We learned this lesson in the prohibition era when distilleries poisoned customers. As prescription levels drop, overdose deaths go up because of dangerous illegal Fentanyl laced drugs produced in China or Mexico on the cheap.
The media is accountable for the damage they are perpetuating by their moral panicking and misinformation.
Do chronic pain patients have any hope left?
Despite the current bleakness, there is always hope. When I started blogging about the opioid crisis in 2015, I couldn’t find hardly any chronic illness bloggers like me covering it. On social media, most people had no idea about the pain medication crackdown, but thanks to the efforts of many pain advocates the word is getting out. Sometimes I’ll even find an article in the media about our suffering, though it never stops them from sensationalizing the crisis of opioids’ mere existence.
My hope is that one day the moral hysteria will pass and people will move on to another manufactured crisis. That day may not come soon, but I know I’ll keep fighting until it does.
