Like I need and want Karen P. Tandy protecting me from myself. I think my doctor and I are a better judge of my medical treatment, than Karen P. Tandy and the rest of those "crime fighters" cough, cough in the DEA.

I saw my mother in law die from colon cancer. The hospice gave my sister in law 2 injections worth of morphine to be given to her when death was approaching. They released them to her because she is an RN. TWO injectons? I could not believe it. Here the woman was vomiting blood, was struggling for every breath and she was saving the morphine for when it got REALLY bad because she was afraid to give it to her too soon lest she run out days before her death. All my MIL had on hand for pain control for the last 6 months of her life was Vicodin 5mg. I get Norco 10mg for my migraines for crying out loud.
If the DEA would stick its nose out of people's medicine chests, than people in need would not have to suffer with pain like they do. It was easier twenty years ago to obtain schedule 2 drugs for severe pain. We have now gone backwards in the area of pain management and I blame this on politics.

This kind of health "care" is disgusting. Compare the amount of acetominophen overdoses per year compared to prescription drug overdoses. The DEA doesn't seem to care about tylenol overdoses, and the resulting liver damage and deaths. They don't care about the number of people who end up in the ER with gastric bleeds from too many NSAIDS. Why not? Lives are at stake here. If a doctor prescribes NSAIDS instead of a narcotic, and the patient dies, I don't see the DEA stepping in. But when a doc prescribes narcotics, well lives are at stake, gosh darn it. Even though like I said, statistically narcotics are much safer, more effective, and have less side effects than Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Vioxx, large amounts of aspirin, etc....

I'll get off my soapbox now, but this makes me hopping mad. It should be a crime to withhold or severely limit the administration of narcotics to people in debilitating pain. It is cruel. There are laws on the books for withholding narcotics in lab animals. Where are the laws and what are the penalties for withholding them in humans?