I think this action by the DEA allowing morphine sulfate back on the market is just a minor pretense for the FDA to act like they care about the suffering of chronic pain patients.

I know you have read the FDA REM proposals and I think anyone with chronic pain who has to take prescribed extended release narcotics should.  I give some links on my blog, there is information here in previous posts as well as people can google it on the blog.

If those reforms are enacted no doubt it will reduce the number of doctors and pharmacies that are willing to prescribe the narcotics that are on the FDA's list.  I still don't quite understand their true motivation.  If they have done any real research, perhaps they have not, then they know that only a small number of chronic paiin patients abuse prescription medication.  They say they are worried about "the community" meaning teenagers or other people that may steal drugs from chronic pain patients, use them or sell them on the street.  This "community" if the FDA gets their wish and severely reduces the number of physicians who will prescribe these narcotics, will just go elsewhere to obtain drugs so all they have done is cut off one supply.  For people who abuse drugs, there are still an abundent supply of drugs on the illegal market.

I see that all it will do is keep more chronic paiin patients from receiving the medication they need to help control their pain to get by day by day.  The FDA would never takes insulin away from diabetics, cardiac meds away from cardiac patients or antidepressants away from people who are depressed unless they are confirmed by studies to cause harm to patients.  These medications are more dangerous than narcotics (look at real research into studies about long term narcotic usage) and all of these drugs have abuse potential.  Many teenagers who abuse drugs when they are going through their grandmother's "stash" don't just take narcotics, they take other medications to experiment with affects the drugs might produce.

I have been to recreational drug sites and narcotics are only one class of drugs that "abusers" misuse. 

The FDA has already kept two new drugs from coming onto the market as it locksteps its way into the "War on Drugs."  This country was founded on individual rights  and how many more decades are the Federal Government going to keep pouring millions of dollars into this "War on Drugs."  There is a problem but the way things are going is certainly not a solution.  Hitting "softer targets" such as doctors and patients does nothing but rack up innocent causualties.

M.E.

Blog:Iamdying.net