there are some parallels between the current COVID-19 pandemic and the issue of chronic pain community and the substance abuse community.
Today the CDC came out with the lethality of the COVID-19 virus is abt 0.3%. Which is a similar percent (0.6%) of the number of chronic pain pts that are at risk of becoming addicted to opiates.
The bureaucracy has acted/reacted in the same/similar manner.. they have chosen which businesses could stay open and generate the same – or greater – revenues and profits and other deemed NON-ESSENTIAL and were forced to close about 10 weeks ago and now are permitted to function at abt 25% capacity… which few companies can pay the overhead expense at that income.
Just like the bureaucrats – mostly DEA and state Medical Licensing board are making decisions of what prescribers have to be SHUT DOWN… and discourage/chastise pharmacies from filling controlled substances .. again choosing winner and losers.
Some states are bending over backwards to make sure those who are substance abusers/addicts get their drug of choice or some drug that will keep them from going into withdrawal.
Chronic painers question why this subset of the population is being treated like winners while those in chronic pain and other subjective diseases are being treated as losers.
It is a common belief that substance abusers commit crimes to get money to fund paying for their next high/fix, many are living in shelters, under overpasses and tents on sidewalks. THEY ARE VISIBLE to the general population and the media.
You take the typical chronic painer that has had their meds cut/discontinued and they become home/bed/chair confined… they are INVISIBLE to the general population and the media.
It is claimed that there is 100 million chronic painers, but the adjacent picture is from
There is abt 4 million people in Oregon and Salem Oregon has a population of abt 400,000. using averages… there is abt 120,000 chronic painers in Salem and 1.2 million in Oregon.. So if you were a bureaucrat… and saw a demonstration by chronic pain pts at the state capital and maybe a couple of dozen people showed up… would you be concerned about any group of people … when the number claimed to be impacted and the number that showed up in a protest/rally was dramatically different ?
We need to look at what some of the bureaucrats have done to small businesses – deemed to be non-essential – that have tried to reopen before the state claimed it was safe to do so…
One 77 y/o barber had his license revoked https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2020/05/state-agency-suspends-license-of-owosso-barber-who-defied-coronavirus-order-closing-non-essential-businesses.html even after The summary suspension order comes two days after Shiawassee County Circuit Court Judge Matthew J. Stewart turned down a request by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, filed on behalf of the state Department of Health and Human Services, for a temporary restraining order to close the business.
One gym, that opened early, had the locks on their gym’s doors changed overnight by the bureaucrats
The female governor of one state, where she had dictated that barber/beauty shops had to be kept closed… admitted on a interview that she was able to get a haircut …because she was “in the public view “
In Michigan, the Governor there dictated that no state resident was to go from their normal in state residence to their “summer house/condo”, but over the weekend a man showed up at a resort lake and asked that his boat be put into the water and when he was denied… he asked that ” .. if his wife was governor … would it make a difference”… the lake was abt 175 miles from their full time residence. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/michigan-gov-whitmer-claims-husbands-reported-boat-request-was-a-failed-attempt-at-humor
One thing that seems to be common on all of these interactions between citizens and the bureaucrats is that law firms are busy filing injunctions with the courts. Some courts seem to favor the citizens and others seem to favor the bureaucracy.
I wonder if someone compared some of the depts within Walmart, Target, Meijers and other big box stores and some of the locally owned small business selling some/most of the same merchandise that have been deemed non-essential… could we get a better picture of how much the various bureaucracies have been allowed to pick winners and losers among retail businesses ?
Does the community need to review and rethink what has been done in the past and what has been accomplished and if a different path needs to be considered ?
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