OPIATES, PLASTIC STRAWS AND OTHER DANGERS

You no doubt have heard all the recent talk about the opiate epidemic. It would appear we are losing thousands of people every day to overdoses of opiate medication. This column will try to put some sense to the conversation.

First of all, opiate medication is an extremely valuable analgesic for the treatment of pain. I have had two recent surgeries and in both cases my surgeon prescribed opiate medication for my post-surgery pain. I took a couple of them but did not care for the effects of the medication so I quit. I found I could get the relief I sought from over the counter meds such as ibuprofen. Now I realize that not everybody has the same reaction to either pain or pain relief. So, if it works for you, marvelous.

I also recognize that some people have chronic pain from arthritis and other maladies. They often seek pain relief from opiate medicines. From everything I can learn, opiate medication is a very important bullet in the arsenal of therapies doctors prescribe for pain.

Here then is where the problem comes in. It seems a number of people don’t necessarily use the medication for its intended purpose, rather using it for “recreational” purposes. Recreational purposes? What’s that all about?

A cursory investigation shows that the majority of opiate overdoses occur in the streets and from illegally obtained drugs. Granted there are overdoses by people using their own prescriptions but by far the biggest problem happens on the street.

So, what do opiates have to do with plastic straws, some may ask. Well I’m glad you asked.

In Santa Barbara, Calif. one can sit on a corner and get stoned lighting up a marijuana joint legally, some say a precursor to hard drugs, but get put in jail for six months for giving someone a plastic straw. By the way, it is six months per straw. So two straws is one year and four straws is two years in jail, etc.

The big problem with these plastic straws is apparently some slobs throw them out on the beach or on the street rather than disposing of them in a proper trash receptacle. That then could be harmful to sea life and generally unattractive to visitors to Santa Barbara.

The brilliant city fathers of this little town decided that because of a few slobs, no one could ever use plastic straws again. It didn’t matter that they were cleaner and more sanitary than paper straws, no one could henceforth have them. The vast majority, who could and probably would use plastic straws properly, would have to be inconvenienced because of a few slobs.

With opiates we have a similar situation. Because of a minute few abusers of this medication, the vast majority of sensible, sane, and proper users will have to be inconvenienced. It is already difficult to get these meds from any doctor. Even when they are prescribed, very few can be dispensed by a pharmacy at a time. If that inconveniences you, that’s just too bad. After all, we have to protect the tiny minority of people who don’t have the judgement or good sense to regulate themselves.

Now you may recall that I said in the title of this piece, other dangers. That primary danger is government regulators seem to be okay with enacting law to regulate millions of law abiding citizens for the sake of a small minority of law breakers and abusers. Some slob throws his plastic straw out on the beach, then no one gets plastic straws. Some druggie decides to dose himself with pain killers and overdoses, then no one gets the benefit of this pain medication.

And of course the final example, some nut case gets a gun and shoots up a school, a restaurant, a movie theater, or just about any gathering, then all law abiding citizens have to pay for his stupidity and lawlessness. We must have gun laws governing everybody to deal with a tiny minority of crackpots. That, my friends is the real danger.

Ron Scarbro