So Much Pain

I was reading the reviews of Cracked: Life on the Edge in a Rehab Clinic and came across this bit from a review.

Coming from a family of alcoholics, I felt one of the most important points Dr. Drew stresses is compassion. An addict/alcoholic is in so much pain, which is hard to understand, ...

Now that is mostly about chronic alcohol users. However, I think it fits the pattern of most chronic drug users. People chronically take pain medication because they have chronic pain. And what is the western medicine attitude towards pain? If you can't fix it you can at least medicate it. Keep the patient comfortable. And that is usually the case. Except for those who self medicate. In many cases they are denied pain medication even for "acceptable" pain.

I was writing about this four years ago in Addiction or Self Medication?. The whole point of the drug war is insane. Making war on pain relief. Well I wrote about that too in The Pain Enforcement Administration and in Is Your Pain Legal?. Because you can't make war on pain relievers without harming those whose job it is to provide pain relief. Or those individuals needing pain relievers for unusual periods or in unusual quantities or for undiagnosed pain.