Despite what appears to be a low risk of addiction in naïve, chronic pain patients, it is reasonable to ask how much harm is actually done to patients with chronic pain by withholding opiate analgesics.

Several medical professional organizations acknowledge the utility of opioid therapy and many case series and large surveys report satisfactory reductions in pain, improvement in function and minimal risk of addiction.

Government agencies are trying to get doctors to cut back on prescribing opioids. I understand that they need to do something about the epidemic of overdoses. However, labeling everyone as addicts, including those who responsibly take opioids for chronic pain, is not the answer. If the proposed changes take effect, they would force physicians to neglect their patients. Moreover, legitimate pain patients, like myself, would be left in agony on a daily basis.

We have a genuine and devastating epidemic of opiate abuse in this country, and it is of critical importance that this problem be addressed. But we must do so in a way that doesn’t cut off an effective (and often the only) treatment for the chronically ill, many of whom are able to function in this world at all only because of the small respite that responsible opiate use provides.

I take opioids to treat chronic pain. Stigmatizing them will harm me.

the media coverage of the ‘opiate epidemic’ as driven by pill pushing-doctors and by pain patients worries me a lot, and I think it is already being used to forward the idea that people in chronic pain should not have access to relief from their pain.