Sadly, Prince died the day after my last column (Cannabis>Scripts) was published. His death is a tragic example of the shadow chronic pain casts over a person’s life and highlights our nation’s need for drug-law reform. The event brought Prince’s health issues into the spotlight, so now the misinformed media portrays him as a sick addict.
Prince died from the effects of chronic pain, not addiction, Lorraine Berry of Raw Story emphasizes. Prince’s chronic pain stemmed from hip injuries sustained while performing. He apparently dealt with it for years while under doctor’s care. In this way, his death came about due to complications from chronic pain arising from taking medications commonly prescribed for his condition.
I must say that getting pain relief is not easy! Because pain is stigmatized, sufferers usually deal with it silently. When people finally seek help, they often are not taken seriously. There is a legitimate concern about opioid addicts seeking too much of the stuff, but that means people suffering from legitimate pain are hard-pressed to get medication to treat it. Once doctors are convinced of the legitimacy of a patient’s pain, the patient is prescribed opioids, the preferred route for treating chronic pain, dictated mostly by what insurance companies are willing to cover. So, let’s not think of Prince as a criminal or drug addict; he was a patient taking opioids prescribed by his doctor.
Some of us are unable to take the medications doctors commonly prescribe. One medication prescribed for severe chronic pain makes my heart race and makes me hyperactive. Refusing to take that and still in pain, another medicine was prescribed. That gave me shaking hands, racing heart, pegged eyes, residual confusion, and a trip to the emergency room! Yes, my pain had gone away but the side-effects were awful. After my emergency room visit, my (former) primary care doctor told me that I’m “one of those pain-in-the-ass patients who can’t take opioids. Go home and take Ibuprofen, then!” I’m sharing my experience to show you that doctors will not or cannot prescribe what some patients need.
We should be allowed to manage pain in our own way, and we should be given access to a full range of options for doing that. Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher deserves praise for coming out recently as a cannabis-using, chronic-pain sufferer. In May, Rohrabacher told activists on Capitol Hill that he uses cannabis-infused wax to treat chronic rheumatoid arthritis pain. Twenty-five states and DC have legalized varying degrees of medical cannabis use, giving over half the American people access to medical cannabis.
Cannabis is currently classified as a Schedule I drug, meaning it has no accepted medical use and has the strong likelihood for abuse. This classification is obviously inaccurate. Medical cannabis specialist Dr. Margaret Gedde says reclassifying cannabis is the most important change activists should hope for. Reclassifying cannabis would allow physicians to begin studying and prescribing it. Senator Bernie Sanders recently tweeted: “The time is long overdue for us to take marijuana off of the federal government’s list of outlawed drugs.”
Such change may be upon us! The Washington Post reports the DEA is in its final stages of reviewing a petition to reschedule cannabis. This should be ready for lawmakers’ review in July. Hopefully, this reclassification will reflect current public opinion. What a welcome change that would be! Reclassification of cannabis is the first step in improving the lives of millions of Americans who could benefit from it. Maybe Prince and others we’ve lost to opiate overdoses would still be with us if they had safer options for treating chronic pain.
