I think one problem is people have vastly different thresholds of pain. Somebody else having the same injury might be calling their doctor back begging for a refill because they can barely function. Of course determining how much of that is a medical need versus how much is "the pills talking" is never going to be easy.

That's one of the beautiful things about Cannabis legalization - it provides a non-addictive pain management solution where the pills will talk much less.

I fully agree with you on Cannabis, but I don't think that's an argument for restricting opioid pills. I think we can and should make Cannabis widely available, and should absolutely encourage people to give it a try first, but if it doesn't work for them I think they should have the option of trying the pills.

>fully agree with you on Cannabis, but I don't think that's an argument for restricting opioid pills. I think we can and should make Cannabis widely available, and should absolutely encourage people to give it a try first, but if it doesn't work for them I think they should have the option of trying the pills.

I'd go further and say that all "drugs" should be easily available and the tiny percentage of folks who develop dependency issues should be provided treatment and support.

Not only would this reduce suffering and provide a wider range of pain management strategies, it would also significantly reduce the societal costs of substance prohibitions in terms of reduced economic impact in the following (not a complete list) ways:

1. Interdiction/enforcement is hugely expensive, and providing treatment to those who require it would cost a fraction of that;

2. Criminalization of substance use stigmatizes those who are caught in that particular net and, at least in the US, limits their ability (because many folks won't hire you if you have a criminal conviction) to increase economic activity/output;

3. Because of (2), many communities as well as the economy as a whole are negatively impacted both economically and socially;

For some reason, when it comes to "substance" use issues, we tend to examine the possible alternatives to address them, then choose the least effective, most harmful one.

I hope that changes, but I doubt I'll live to see it.

Edit: Clarified that the impacts I mention are not all of the impacts that drug prohibition has on society.

I don't understand what the problem is with the imprecision in your story. Did your coworker abuse the extra pills? Did he become an addict? If not, then why is it so bad for him to have gotten more in case he needed them? Don't you think needing them and not having them is worse than the situation your friend was in where he needed to throw them away?

He was a trained pharmacologist who knew that being on a constant dosage for that long can be habit forming so he didn't take them - a decent portion of people are handed a bottle of pain meds "Here's a two week supply" and assume they're supposed to take them at the prescribed rate continuously. It takes an active personal decision to decide not to take the meds prescribed for you and that you've already paid for.