Pain and Punishment
Psychiatrist Sally Satel’s piece “Treating Opioid Addiction” (March 6) favors “benign paternalism” in public policy regarding what some have hysterically called an “epidemic” but Dr. Satel more soberly calls a “crisis.” What caused this crisis? According to Dr. Satel, it all started when “patient advocates” and “narcotics manufacturers” encouraged some physicians to “over-prescribe” medications for such minor ills as “toothaches.” However, having said so, Dr. Satel immediately acknowledges that “the average drug abuser is not a person being treated for pain” but someone who “obtains pills from friends, shady doctors, or street sellers.” Just so. But if the main cause of the problem is neither misbehavior by physicians nor misbehavior by patients, why has the main response by government been to discourage conscientious physicians from prescribing seriously needed pain medication to responsible patients?
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