At Least the Guy on the Corner is Honest About It

http://newsok.com/article/3451463/

I just happened to find this article this morning and it says so much. Especially to me, a former prescription drug addict who can now see that the state legislators know very little about addiction and how to stop drug related crimes in our state. Doctors and drug companies are killing more people each year than the street drug biz, yet nobody seems to care too much about it.

Prescription drug addicts don't look like the typical drug addict. They have families and jobs and cars. They function on a pretty normal level most of the time and they are only a phone call away from their next fix. They are doctors, lawyers, daycare workers, and teachers. They are driving out on the road with you and they are doped out of their minds. My addictions were antidepressants, hormones, blood pressure meds, and sleeping pills - the combination of which (especially mixed with vodka) could have killed me at least a hundred times. Looking back on my whole situation, what really makes me angry was the quickness of my doctor (an ob/gyn) to whip out the prescription pad for every little symptom that I complained about, never once making the connection between my high blood pressure, weight gain, inability to sleep, and hormone problems to the original "cure all" pill, Paxil. He never should have been refilling my Paxil in the first place. What the hell did he know about psychotropic meds? (not much - obviously)

In many ways I actually have more respect for the guy on the street corner who is handing out meth than I do for the doctor with the prescription pad. At least the guy on the street is honest about what he is doing. He doesn't hide behind the fact that he is causing people to be addicted to the point of death so that he can profit from it. Oh no ... he will come right out and tell you that he doesn't care whether or not he is ruining somebody's life ... as long as he gets his money or his fix then all is right with the world. He doesn't get to be a part of some street drug dealer association and attend fancy conferences where he spews lies and propaganda about the benefits of meth. Oh no .... he can't hide behind a big fancy mahogany desk in his corner office, under the guise of helping people while he is slowly killing them. He doesn't get to hire himself fancy lawyers when he gets caught handing out pain meds by the thousands to just about anybody who comes in his office. He is by no means a good person for what he does, but neither is the "doctor" who takes the freebies from Big Pharma and pretends to care about his patients.