A moral panic is happening in the United States right now, and it’s the so-called “opioid crisis” or “opioid epidemic” that pops up daily in the news. Reporters can be heard lamenting that the sky is falling and that anyone and everyone is addicted to prescription drugs. Of course, we know that isn’t true, but the opioid hysteria continues.
Opioid hysteria and addiction as a moral panic
What is a moral panic?
A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. Typically, a moral panic is perpetuated by the news media, fueled by politicians, and often results in the passage of new laws or policies that target the source of the panic.
From the very beginning, addiction should have been a public health issue, but instead, there was panic. “Addiction is ruining people’s lives everywhere,” screams the media who develop the narrative myth that anyone can get addicted from a trip to the dentist and end up dying at a crack house. Sobbing parents appear on the news begging politicians to do something, anything.
As emotions ramp up what’s the next option in a moral panic? Going too far by fixing the addict label to people who aren’t addicted.
Related posts:
How the opioid crisis can lead those with chronic to suicide
Pain warrior documentary: The other side of the opioid crisis
The real opioid crisis is what’s happening to people with chronic pain
The shutting down of “pill mills” and the beginning of opioid hysteria
Once upon a time in the 2000s pill mills still existed. Florida especially had a problem, and so they began an initiative to shut them down in 2010. This was a good thing because there really was a problem with giving pain pills to people not in pain. Unfortunately, taking the hint from the failed “War on Drugs,” policymakers made drugs and opioid addiction a criminal issue, instead of a public health issue.
Once the pill mills shut down, the policymakers and medical community had the opportunity to turn their focus to the real problem. They could have set up a system to support people with addiction. They could have offered treatment and counseling, and they could have addressed the societal problems leading to addiction, but they didn’t because the opioid crisis became a moral panic.
Drugs and overprescription of opioids should have been a public health issue, but politicians made them a criminal issue instead. This furthered addiction rates and fueled the increase in overdose deaths. Click To Tweet
Chronic pain, the opioid crisis, and a moral panic lead to opioid hysteria
Now everyone is panicking about opioids and it’s time for politicians and celebrities to get involved.
Because some people with addiction use pain medicine off label, that must mean everyone abuses pain medicine. Who uses pain medicine the most? People with chronic pain. Sure, they only have a less than 1% rate of addiction, but in a moral panic, righteousness is on the side of the panicking. So, medical professionals and politicians overcorrect and target people in pain. The general idea seems to be that chronic pain patients are weak-minded and weak-willed, just like people with addiction (that is true for neither population). Together they are running amok destroying the country and life as we know it. Don’t believe me? Check out this guy’s Twitter feed where he openly calls people with chronic pain “opioid-dependent patients” who are being manipulated by “Big Pharma.”
So the pain patients had to be stopped too. However, too many patients didn’t show enough signs of addiction. Some too many patients were suffering from legitimate pain diagnosed by their doctors. So pain patients needed their souls saved by the great and mighty PROP (Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing) leaders. They came up with the idea to rid the earth of opioids forever and to gaslight patients just like they did to people experiencing addiction. They decided that pain was no longer pain.
We all know pain is a warning signal to our body that something is wrong. When your body hurts, there’s always a reason even if you can’t see it. Thanks to the #opioidhysteria, pain is no longer pain, it's #addiction or mental illness. Click To TweetThe definition of pain is called into question
It sounds crazy because we all know what pain is. We know it’s a warning signal to our body that something is wrong. When your body hurts, there’s always a reason even if you can’t see it. However, the idea behind PROP is to gaslight people by telling them their pain is all in their minds. Or if it’s not, they need to practice “pain acceptance.”
This is not the first time doctors have tried to pretend that pain isn’t real. For centuries women were told their pain wasn’t real. Meanwhile, half of the medical students believe black people feel less pain than white people. This is CURRENT DAY, not a hundred years ago. So why not ramp things up and say that pain doesn’t exist for anyone.
How the opioid hysteria and moral panic worsened the opioid crisis
Meanwhile, people with addiction are suffering and dying on the streets because they don’t have access to safer prescription drugs. Instead, they’re taking dangerous illicit fentanyl from China which has increased the overdose rates. So people with addiction die due to dangerous drugs, and people in pain die because of their endless suffering.
Thanks to the #opioidcrisis people with #addiction die due to dangerous drugs, and people in pain die because of their endless suffering. Meanwhile, medical professionals hop onto social media to mock those in pain. Click To TweetSimultaneously, the medical community hops onto social media to make fun of people who are suffering. Not surprisingly they get nasty when the people they mock react poorly. They believe they’re the victims in this situation. Society finds it comforting to know that people experiencing pain and addiction are being appropriately punished for their bad behavior.
That is the whole point of moral panic after all.
Society finds it comforting to know that people experiencing #pain and #addiction are being appropriately punished for their bad behavior. Click To Tweet
*This is an incredibly complex issue that I’ve written about more than I can count. I do not have room to go into the complete history of moral panics or opioids. If you’re curious, I’d ask you to listen to pain patients, people with addiction, and their doctors before you listen to the moral panickers.
I have in the past been much harder on people with addiction and I regret that. I’m trying to go back and update some of my older posts with the correct language.
It’s a terrible situation. I am one of those with chronic pain that got sent to the “Pain Clinic” for better pain management. Their answer, stop all pain medications pretty much cold turkey. Did they monitor me, No. just sent me home, told me to stop. It took 3 months of Hell. My blood pressure was all over the place. At one time so high at stroke level that they just told me it was normal for detox. At other times so low I passed out. No monitoring except over the phone calls every two weeks. I’m 65 and this was legitimately hard. I was sick, I shook and my pain levels are too high. I suffer every day, esp. at night.
They tried giving me gabapentin, Lyrica and a few other medications that made me so sick, I could not walk properly or talk with out stuttering. These were better medications they said. Yet I could not tolerate them.
They accused me of using pain medications to mask anxiety and have literally forced me to make an appt with a psychiatrist now. My pain doctor has said some mean and unacceptable things to me while in the worst of my detox that I was unable to use my voice because I was so sick.
Opiod hysteria has caused a lot of unethical treatment of real pain patients. Pain can be managed with close communication and collaboration with a good doctor. We should not have to go unchecked.
It does not surprise me suicides are up. I get so depressed when I lay in pain with no alternative, that it has very briefly crossed my mind.
I hate to admit that after hardly touching alcohol in over 10 years, I now find it to be my only temporary source of pain control. I’m a lightweight so it does not take much, but really not an answer I was looking for either.
In our plan, any patient on a long term pain medication must sign contracts, get random UA checks, and are allowed to only pick up their medication on one day of the month for which they graciously provide you with a calendar and a color assigned to your day. No longer being on pain medication, I am still required to do random UAs. Why? Why?
I did not abuse my pain medication, but did require increases due to tolerance. But I also did self cut backs so as to not get such a tolerance that I was on copious amounts.
Right now, I see no way out of this but to suffer. I am hoping that when they move forward and look back, they will see the unethical treatment of for real pain sufferers.
More education is desperately needed for doctors who just tell patients to stop their pain medication regardless if an addict or pain patient. It’s dangerous to detox too fast. Its mentally cruel and also dangerous.
My patient chart lists me as having an allergy to all opioids. This is untrue, and scary if I find myself in a hospital unable to get treated for pain. No doctor other than a pain clinic doctor can write me prescriptions now. As an Hmo patient, these are the rules.
I have no answers. I no longer feel I can ask for help from my doctor without being tagged, or seen as a drug seeker. It’s a sad situation.
I am a chronic pain sufferer and can find no relief.
The medical community has lost its freaking mind. They are all running scared and leaving the destruction ( us) in its wake.
Debi, I am so sorry you’ve been treated this way, it is wrong. That pain management doctor should be charged for negligence, but I know doctors are allowed to do this to patients now. There’s no winning for people in pain anymore, and I just wonder if things will ever change.
They will, but not fast enough.. Unfortunately a lot of people will suffer with chronic pain until something does change. It may take years. I am old enough that I may not see the change in attitudes. In this day and age, pain can be managed. It requires patient/ doctor trust and open communication about pain medications. I have nothing at all against monitoring, UAs or managed prescription pickup. It’s just sad when your made to feel you are bad for needing it.
I truly believe street Opiod abuse will increase during this time, not decrease. They are not preventing overdoses, they are allowing chronic pain to go unchecked. People will find any means available to control severe pain. If addiction is the issue, it needs to also be treated accordingly. Most pain patients are not taking opioids to get high. These are separate issues and need to be treated as such. Either way, abrupt stopping of opioids without proper management can lead to death. They will taper you off of steroids, but not think twice about stopping opioids. I think the medical fields, insurance companies are running scared right now. Big pharma has rightfully come under scrutiny, and when it rains it pours.
It’s just a terrible situation for the patients. They (we) are paying a terrible price for years of negligent prescribing.
My very strange question is, what the hell do they do when a patient comes through with diagnosed FM, EDS Migraine Disorder, herniated C2-5, a diagnosed anxiety disorder Social, OCD, GAD, Panic PTSD and Diagnosed ADHD (all by specialists)
They put you on GD antidepressants and send you on your way… I might as well end it now I’m sure my kids don’t need a messed up Mother this bad at least, I’m not even worth helping a little (I’ve never misused a Rx, Ive been accused, and it was found I had an esophageal stricture on top of RNY gastric bypass… which also contributed to my “low lab levels”) … so seriously if this is just everywhere and I have no hope of getting help anywhere I quit or something needs to be changed ASAP because we’re all worthy of functioning in society the best we’re able to.