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Historical Look at Drug Laws:
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Pain Management
If you are one of the thousands of individuals who suffer chronic pain, you know how deeply pain can affect your entire life. When one is in pain, they become angry; the angrier they become, the more the pain intensifies. When one is in pain; they become depressed; the more depressed they become, the more the pain intensifies. When on is in pain, little things that most take for granted become excruciating efforts; showering, housework, cooking, even laundry. When one is in pain, life’s little enjoyments are no longer enjoyable. One isolates his or herself, for it becomes easier to be alone than to deal with people, no matter how much we love those people.
For those of you who do not suffer chronic pain, the prior words must seem utterly fantastic; trust me, pain becomes a vicious circle that leads the chronic pain sufferer into a spiral tunnel, pulling them into a plummeting doom.
For those of you who do not suffer chronic pain, but live with someone who does, I am positive that you can testify that the once loving person has become vicious, angry and at times appears demented. The problem is that too many doctors refuse to treat chronic pain properly; some because they just do not understand, some because they fear that they are being duped by the chronic pain sufferer in order to obtain drugs for street use; by far, many more doctors fear loosing their license for prescribing drugs necessary to combat the chronic pain sufferer’s pain.
It may be easier to understand chronic pain, by putting it in a perspective that most reader’s can relate to; a character in a Stephen King novel. King’s characters are not deranged, they are victim of circumstance. Despite the fact that the characters may at some point throughout his tale, feel they have lost their grip on reality because of their circumstances, that does not make them crazy. Have you once read a King novel and at the end felt that the character was crazy?
Recall the King Novel Desperation. For those of you who are familiar with this novel, had you ever wondered who the main character truly was; the child or the aging writer? Like the aging writer in Desperation, I can vouch for those whose normal functionality ends on at a single moment of time. I can lay witness to the fact that after that moment you are merely the walking dead, someone who is physically present but who’s mentally lost in a better time and place. Within both of the novels: The Stand and Desperation, there are characters who question not only the existence of God, but whether we needed to follow what that God may have in mind for us or should we choose the darker course of our own free will. Like the main characters of Deloris Claiborn and Gerald’s Game, it those suffering chronic pain must find the means by which to break the chains of dependency and learn to rely on oneself. In each of Stephen King’s novels there lies a central theme that being no one could make you happy but yourself.
In other words, like the characters in a Stephen King novel, those who suffer chronic pain are living in their own private nightmare, seeking the switch that will awaken them, pulling them from the depths of darkness into a world of light. The question is, how did a country like the United State allow the medical system to turn normal people into zombies living within terror? The best way to understand is to reprint an article which appeared in the New York Times on June 21, 1914:
Towns Says Provision Must Be Made to Treat Thousands Who Got Habit Unconsciously.
THEIR SUPPLY SHUT OFF
Drug Fiends of the Underworld Will Be Little Affected by Statute Governing Physicians' Prescriptions.
New York Times June 21, 1914
The Boylan anti-drug law, which was passed by the New York Legislature on March 28, and which becomes effective on July 1, will result in serious consequences if State and city authorities do not make immediate provision for the treatment of "innocent" drug slaves, according to Charles B. Towns of 119 West Eighty-first Street, who framed the law.
"There are thousands of persons in this city alone who have unconsciously become addicted to the use of habit-forming drugs and who are not in any way to blame for their condition," Mr. Towns said yesterday. "Some of these innocent victims may not yet know that they have become drug fiends. No estimate can be made of their number. These are persons who, perhaps several years ago, were given drugs on physicians prescriptions to alleviate suffering from some disease or injury which, in most of the cases has since been cured. The administration of the drug, however, creates a craving for it which the patient cannot withstand, and after the cause for the first doses is gone the habit remains. The victims then secure more and more of the drug on their physicians' prescriptions. If the drug is denied them they become violently nervous and show all of the horrible symptoms of the deprived dope fiend within twenty-four hours; making it necessary for their physicians to renew the prescriptions.
"The new law provides that in the future, it shall be unlawful for any physician, veterinarian, or dentist to issue prescriptions for drugs except after a physical examination for the treatment of disease, injury, or deformity, and to prevent the forging of prescription blanks every doctor signing them must affix a record of his name in full, his office address, office hours, and telephone number, and to whom the prescription is issued, together with the date of issuance. It can be filled but once, and must be filled within ten days. It will also be unlawful for any person to fill such prescription without first verifying its authenticity by telephone or otherwise or to have drugs in his possession without authority. Aside from the fact that any dealer or physician found guilty of breaking the new law will be guilty of a misdemeanor, his license may be revoked upon his conviction.
"These new strictures will make it impossible for the innocent drug fiends to secure more drugs from their physicians. The law for the time being will hardly affect the drug users of the underworld, who have long known secret channels through which they can obtain their drugs. It will fall most heavily on the person who has broken no law in the past in securing habit forming drugs and will drive him--or her, for there are vast numbers of women who have become drug fiends in this manner--to seek illicit drug dens if other methods are not speedily provided. The law provides that persons who are found to be habitual users of such drugs shall be committed to a State, county, or city hospital or institution licensed under the State Lunacy Commission until they have been treated sufficiently to warrant their release. It takes only five or six days to cure a drug fiend in a hospital, but as yet the hospitals licensed by the commission have not made ample preparation for the treatment of more than a small percentage of the cases which should be sent to them when the law goes into effect if the highest good is to be derived from the law.
"The movement for intelligent legislation regulating drug traffic is comparatively young and New York's new law will not remedy conditions in this State, but it is a good beginning. It should attract the attention of intelligent people in other States, and should be imitated throughout the country. Until this is done, however, and uniform anti-drug legislation has been secured we will be handicapped by the fact that drug users in New York can send prescriptions across the river to New Jersey, or elsewhere, and have them filled with little inconvenience. The law provides that all orders for the wholesale purchase of drugs must be written on serially numbered, duplicated blanks furnished by the Commissioner of Health. This will keep track of all supplies of drugs purchased in New York, but druggists, or persons posing as druggists, will still be able to order from Philadelphia, or elsewhere on their regular letterhead paper or on fake letterhead paper. The need of national legislation is obvious."
Mr. Towns has prepared an act which he hopes to have passed by Congress imposing a tax upon and regulating the importation, production, manufacture and distribution of habit-forming drugs. Under the present Federal law, he said yesterday, the government asks no question concerning the disposition which is made of crude drugs imported into the country, but simply taxes them as they come in. His bill proposes that a close record be kept of every ounce of habit-forming drug that enters the country until it is finally consumed under orders from a reputable physician. There should also be legal provision, he said yesterday, to prevent the filling of prescriptions for drugs issued by any physician not a resident of the State in which the prescription is filled, so as to overcome the present interstate laxity. In setting an example in the matter for other States to follow, it was suggested it would be a good idea for the New York State Medical Society to prepare official prescription blanks exclusively for drugs and to have them copyrighted so that similar blanks could not be printed for illicit use.
When asked what he considered the principal cause of the widespread use of drugs, Mr. Towns said:
"In the six thousand cases I have studied, I have found that in every case in which the victim was a youth he had smoked cigarettes long before he began to take drugs." Effective universal anti-drug legislation, he said, would reduce lunacy and criminality about 40 per cent.
This is where I plan to end this week. I would like you to read and re-read this throughout the week --- because it doesn’t stop here!