Do you think opiate pain medications should be outlawed for noncancer sufferers as in chronic pain?

[Warpy]

178. If you read the article, you see that they're rubberstamping the CDC guidelines

that state that patients who are approaching a 120mg/day morphine equivalent in pain control should be referred to pain specialists and have an assessment of how fast and just why their dosage has increased so much. Pain control specialists use non drug methods which include but are not limited to nerve block, surgery, cognitive therapy, and physical therapy focused on pain control in addition to drugs. This is a good thing, since PCPs are not able to focus on chronic pain as a separate entity.

Pain control will still be between the patient and his/her doctor. The doctor will simply be one who specializes in pain management.

FWIW, I'm a chronic pain patient. I have been on opiates or opioid synthetics since the mid 90s. I use the meds to be functional with periods during the day when I am not medicated and in pain but enjoying having my brain work better off the drugs. Some folks can't do that and need long acting pain control. I can't judge them but I can say management by a pain service is superior to management by a primary care doc.