Bush policy to target prescription drugs Trackingpatients'

[Guest guest]

I expect if it gets to the point of being up and running, it will soon be

realized that they will be inundated with legitimate patients complaining about

being targeted that dealing with that part alone will be so much work and so

time consuming that the program won't last long.

I'm in canada and we have a prescription monitoring program for narcotics/

controlled substances so when you get that prescription it is on triplicate

paper and one copy goes to the monitoring program (which is underutilized

accodring to the news and they are more collecting paper than correlating people

with multisource prescriptions). For the most part, if a specialist starts you

on a medication, after its usefulness is established then they will get you to

have your GP continue writing the prescription. This is partly due to how hard

it is to get specialist appts.

Joyce

[Guest guest]

Hi Barb,

>

>You and I are more likely to agree on this as we have both had close

>relationships with drug addicts. I was married to a drug addict, and I

>suffered physical harm as a result of his drug addiction. On more than one

>occassion, he was prescribed narcotic pain killers and faked long-term pain

>afterwards to get his hands on more of the drugs. He also mixed the

>narcotics with alcohol, which only made things worse.

You are so right... My ex also did the exact same thing. He also

mixed with alcohol and with illegal drugs... Good the two of us got

away from those guys...

I also grew up with an aunt who was an alcoholic who also used

prescription drugs. I remember very vividly all the times her kids

called and my parents had to go there to help... The childhood they

had, no kid should experience. The kids luckily moved to other family

members so that they did not live their entire childhood that way...

It was so sad...

>I also had my own serious problem with an accidental over-dose of allergy

>medicine when I was 15. The short version of the story is I am very lucky

>to have had other people with me at the time, or I might have killed a bunch

>of kids in a playground because I passed out behind the wheel. This was

>before I even had a driver's license!

Oh my god... Good you had people with you...

>Both of these experiences influence my personal feelings about narcotics and

>drug addiction.

I also think that my experiences with medications used the wrong way

by people, made it really difficult for myself when I had to start

using pain meds myself... But luckily I do know the difference now...

It is unfortunately a problem that people can get away with shopping

around for medications they really do not need. And that there

unfortunately are doctors that do prescribe too much narcotics... And

it does have awful effects for the person and family and friends as

well...

>Again, I am not saying that the Bush policy is going to be the right one. I

>am just saying that there are two sides to this issue and stopping

>prescription drug abuse is important. It shouldn't come at the cost of

>Chronic Pain patients, but the only way that the people in power will

>understand the issues of chronic pain is to share your stories with your

>politicians.

I am not saying that the policy is going to be the right one, only

that I really see the need to take action to do something about this

problem... It is great that chronic pain sufferers do write to

politicians, because they need to be aware of all sides of this story

in order to make the right decision. It is a terribly difficult issue

which has a lot of different sides to it... So hopefully they get all

the info needed to make the best decision possible...

But to be honest, I wouldn't cry if an issue like this really made

things hard for Mr Bush... He-he...

Aase Marit