I mention this issue in my piece "20 Reasons why Dying at Home is Better than Dying in a Hospital" and you have cut to the truth of it. We have a national problem with drugs.

We have a puritanical minority of the country that looks at the consequences of addiction and has decided that the ONLY solutions are denial and punishment. They insist, that just like being gay, drug use is a personal choice. A moral failure and sign of weakness.

Implicit in this ideation is the assumption that addicts have no control and must be "managed" by the "superior" people.

Frequently this has distinctive racial overtones such as the "War on Drugs" that results in 20% of Black men having criminal records and being unable to vote. Because Blacks are "weak" and their communities must be massively policed to keep the drugs out.

The puritans love to create harsh drug policies for the "weak" people in order to protect them. Because they know, that if one of their kids or relatives has a problem, like Rush Limbaugh they will go to a private rehab facility.

People like them need understanding, weak people only respond to the lash.

This comes and goes. This is like the 3rd time in my life we have had a crackdown on pain medications for sick people. It always winds up in heartbreaking stories of massive suffering and reforms.

Then the cycle starts up again.

It's a bad time to be a patient if you are in pain.