I keep hearing about the “Opioid Crisis” from both sides of the aisle.  I suppose that since it seems to have had something to do with causing it, government should do something to clean it up.  However I have little faith in government to do so, regardless of the party in power.  This is a problem, like so many others, that government cannot fix.  All it will do is further distort the doctor-patient relationship with more regulation.  I thought we were supposed to be reducing regulation.  Politicians love a crisis.  It gives them something to grandstand about and make themselves look good whether or it actually gets solved, and it usually doesn’t.

I confess to some internal conflict where drugs of any kind are concerned.  I look to places where they are unrestricted and I don’t see places I would want to live.  We do have some responsibility as a society to promote that which is good and true.  We aught not to encourage behavior that is harmful to the individual and the society.  We all want liberty, but liberty without responsibility is anarchy.

The question becomes, “how do we determine that standard in regard to potentially harmful substances that also have legitimate medical application?”  Why does a third party that knows neither me nor my doctor get any say in what we decide is best?  I am not at all sure they have that right.  For that matter, I am a reasonably intelligent person arguably competent to make decisions for myself.  If I have done my research and determined what can best meet my need, do I even need a doctor to control how I go about meeting the need?  Maybe, but I’m not entirely convinced.  Granted, I might be wrong.  I might even do myself harm with the choice I make, but that is none of the governments business unless perhaps I did so using deliberately and demonstrably false information provided by a malicious party.

Letting government regulate much of anything seems a bit to me like putting an addict in charge of the pharmacy.  It is already high on power.  It has exceeded the founders’ recommended dosage by multiples and is in danger of lethal overdose.  I hope we can get it into detox before it is too late.  Recent efforts are at least a start.