This is probably the most rhetorical, idiotic question ever asked on this board, but why don't we adopt an entirely new attitude toward medicine - let's have doctors heal the sick and do everything they have in their power to make their patients' lives better?

What keeps everything and everyone "in line" when there is clearly an overwhelming need for realistic approaches to pain management.

I've seen Discovery-type TV shows about the topic and about how doctors are afraid to prescribe certain compounds because of DEA pressure, so it isn't that people don't KNOW - is it the stigma of narcotic drug use, or just that such a minority of people suffer crippling pain that it isn't "important" enough to address?

I'm asking a real question here - I read the documentation earlier in this thread, but nothing has explained to me why a doctor who has allegedly sworn to help hir patients can ethically deny what is known to be an effective treatment. I know that it happens, but why? What do the DEA or FDA get out of causing pain and prison sentences for honest sufferers? What is their gain?