Coroner letters changed habits of doctors whose patients died of overdoses
I will admit I&#x27;m biased: my mother died of an overdose. She was a drug addict. I, on the other hand, have a painful autoimmune disorder, but I&#x27;ve never taken medication. Yet every doctor I&#x27;ve met in the past ten years has looked at me and immediately treated me like a drug addict. Personal experience aside (as it really is not quantitatively demonstrative of anything larger) I&#x27;ve done my best to research this issue, and I&#x27;m still somewhat at a loss. Based on these numbers and the 2016 CDC list of leading causes of death<i>, opiate-related deaths account for .02% of the population. On the other hand, I would guess we have quintuple that in people who suffer chronic pain. Though, I can&#x27;t say how many use their medication as prescribed, I would guess it&#x27;s at least more than .02% of the population. Addiction is not simple, and even people who started responsibly taking medication could develop an addiction. I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s fair, however, to punish the many people who depend on pain relief. Lax laws in the 80s and 90s have now pendulum-swung to the other side. Patients are seeing their medication reduced without tapering, they are given no other option than to &quot;suck it up,&quot; and all along, they are variously demonized or treated as though they are weak. It&#x27;s a complicated situation that I am not equipped to solve. I do think there needs to be a middle ground. There needs to be a better effort that will help the entire patient population.<p></i><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;nchs&#x2F;fastats&#x2F;leading-causes-of-death.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;nchs&#x2F;fastats&#x2F;leading-causes-of-death.htm</a>