What other sacred cows can I poke today... Oh, the American opioid crisis based upon prescriptions by real doctors... well, you see, opioids are brilliant for assuaging serious pain. They are the best...especially opium, heroin, morphine. they are brilliant. Nothing can get better than them. We even have developed and evolved opioid receptors to receive them, gratefully, and have our own endorphins are made of similar really good stuff.The simple, natural organic opium poppy. The problem is that once the cause of the pain and the pain itself has resolved, and that's a period of a few months, has passed, then, well, people keep using them...which is not a good idea at all, obviously. this is bad guardianship by doctors. The synthetics, the oxycodones, the fentanyl, the bupremorphines etc aren't as good as pain relievers, and they are far more addictive, yet they are prescribed far more often these days because the people who make them say that they are better and less addictive...simply because the companies can't patent opium...so they invent this artificial shit, and people believe them. fentanyl is ok, if one enjoys hallucinations...usually furless rabbits running about the room...but fentanyl is uneccesary. If you have serious pain, especially pain related to your own mortality/terminality, then stick with morphine, heroin and opium, they are far more effective and far more natural. Many folk will say they are allergic to morphine, but hardly anyone on earth actually is. In 30 years of palliative care, I never met one who is physically allergic to morphine. The best test is to sub-cut 1mg and you will see if there is any allergy, and there isnt. People are just scared of the name, that's all. Morphine with a tad of methadone in it, to prolong the analgesic effect and to cover some bone pain morphine doesn't do well, toss in some midazolam for the fear, a tad of haloperidol to remove any nausea, is always best in terminal cancer situations...they will serve you well...this other shit is all about the profits for the drug companies and to assuage the paranoias of society...whilst watching people die in pain because...hmmm...nothing can be done...poor us. we would rather see someone racked with pain than have them sitting up in bed eating dinner and drinking wine and smoking cigars when it comes to our bizarre fears of mortality. Life has its joys and pains and that won't change. We can fix pretty well all the pains, but we can't fix the greed, nor can we fix the willingness of companies and governments to prefer to do harm rather than do good...that's the human condition...and that won't change.