Hey, here's a (not) surprising fact: painkiller use in the States has shot up dramatically:
The amount of five major painkillers sold at retail establishments rose 88 percent between 1997 and 2005, according to an Associated Press analysis of statistics from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during the most recent year represented in the data. That total is enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person in the country.
So where do I line up to get my 300 milligrams, dammit?
Apparently there are three big reasons for the increase: the population's getting older, and older people need more painkillers; drug manufacturers are doing a lot more marketing; and the whole philosophy of better pain management through prescribing more painkillers has caught on. The obvious fourth reason of "painkillers are hella fun" is of course not being propagated, but that's because that very reason is part of a "pendulum swing" in the opposite direction of, shall we say, less conservative pain management techniques. In our own general practitioner's office, my wife (who suffers from chronic pain due to a car accident years ago) gets reasonable, regular prescriptions of various painkillers and sleep aids; when she saw a particular substitute doctor in that office, the doc wouldn't even open her chart and said she didn't believe in prescribing Soma because it has addictive properties. It's all a bit of a mess, and the people who need painkillers most are sadly getting caught in the crossfire.
But that's beside the point, because I want my 300 milligrams, dammit!
