Please note that I did not get to say everything in this document because each public commenter is limited to 3 minutes; however, this written comment was submitted to be included in the official Michigan OAC meeting minutes.
Good morning, thank you for allowing me to speak.
My name is Darlene, I’m a Michigan chronic pain patient since 2011. I live in Ferndale, Michigan.
I’m part of a group of nearly 1000 Michigan residents who are active on the FaceBook group, the Michigan Doctor Patient Forum. The Michigan Doctor Patient Forum is part of a larger national group of the same name with 25,000 members.
I’m going to share a few posts that illustrate how opioid prohibition and fear mongering are torturing pain patients in Michigan and driving some of them to suicide.
Jenelle from Escanaba, Michigan, who’s family doctor moved, can’t find a new doctor to manage her chronic knee pain. The closest doctor she could find won’t accept her because she lives too far away. On Feb 17, 2022 , she wrote, “I’m not in withdrawal, just a lot of pain, and now I have inspections on the 22nd, which I cannot clean for, because I can barely walk now, so I’ll end up losing my housing. I can’t get up my stairs to take a shower or sleep in my own bed. I can’t get downstairs to the basement to do my laundry. I am running out of food but can’t do any grocery shopping or even cook. I now have to rehome my cats because I can no longer take care of them. I am lucky I can still get up to use the bathroom. I haven’t eaten in days because I can’t stand long enough to cook anything, and I’ll have to send my daughter to live with my mother because I can’t properly take care of her. I can’t do this anymore. I was good on 40 mg of Percocet a day until my doctor left, and now no one will prescribe. I have no life now, so what’s the point. I am done fighting. I have no one to fight for me. I can’t and won’t live like this anymore.”
On March 27, 2022, Charlene in Trenton, Michigan, said “I need help. I am in the hospital. I broke my left leg. My right foot and ankle were also broken. I have a lisfranc fracture. They put in a plate and screws. My legs are burning so bad. My pain management doctors are handling my case in the hospital and are not very kind. They are saying that when I am released, they will be cutting my meds, that my tolerance is too high because the [dosage of the] meds they have been prescribing for years is too high, and that is why I am in pain. I have catastrophic injuries and will be in wheelchair for at least 6 months to a year. And it is still possible I will never walk again. I can’t believe they are trying to reduce my meds while recovering from such severe injuries. The hospital has said they want me to go to a rehab/nursing home, but I can’t [because if I do] I will lose my senior alliance help and I can’t live without that. I am in Southeastern Michigan. At Beaumont South Shore hospital located in Trenton.” Yesterday she said, “I still can’t walk…,” and “I think of having my left leg amputated every day. Just putting on socks can make me scream out in pain.”
On November 14th, 2022, Shalyn Manson, a woman from Lansing, Michigan threw herself into the freezing Grand River after being forced to taper her pain medication for unknown reasons. She was a marathon runner who developed a pain syndrome resulting from a foot injury. She was on pain medicine for years before she was forced off her medication. In her suicide note, which she shared on social media, she described her feelings of being in, “a living hell with no way out.”
I know you’re probably thinking this isn’t the Commission’s job to be concerned about chronic pain patients. You think your only obligation is to the addiction and recovery community, but we disagree.
The DEA (cops, not licensed doctors) has taken a bogus and supposedly optional guideline from the CDC, weaponized it, and used it to justify the arrest of doctors who have done nothing more than prescribe opioids for pain. Look up the story of Dr. Lesly Pompy (https://ronaldwchapman.com/blog/leslypompyacquittal#:~:text=Lesly%20Pompy%20Acquitted%20of%20All%2038%20Counts,Trafficking%20and%20Health%20care%20Fraud&text=A%20federal%20jury%20acquitted%20Dr,after%20a%20month%20long%20trial.). He fought back and was acquitted of all charges. It took him 6 years, and he is still not in clinical practice again.
We deserve a seat at this table because we have an opioid problem, too; as in we can’t get any for our pain, and that is torture. And I know you don’t believe me, because the party line from organizations like PROP and Michigan OPEN is that no one needs opioids for any reason, and unfortunately, this lie is being repeated so frequently, most people believe it.
You probably don’t believe that withholding opioid medication for pain relief is torture, because that lie is also on perpetual repeat. But I want to let you know the United Nations agrees with us that it is. (https://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/pharmacological/opioids/united-nations-says-untreated-pain-inhumane-cruel; see also below).
The prohibition has gone too far and made life a living hell for Michiganders in pain.
We deserve a seat at this table, we deserve to be heard, and we deserve to have a say in how you advise congress to use this money to manage the availability, or not, of opioid medication for medical use.
We want our opioids back. We want our pain medication back. We want our government to stop imprisoning our doctors for prescribing opioids.
The Commission talks about medication assisted therapy to treat addiction with opioids. All we are asking for is the same consideration. That opioids be available to treat pain patients, and right now, because of the aforementioned actions of law enforcement, they are virtually unavailable for treatment of pain.
We want you to tell congress, along with whatever else you have to say about harm reduction, to pass a law that protects who prescribe opioids for pain from harassment and imprisonment by the DEA, State Attorney General, and State Medical Boards.
Enough is enough.
Thank you.
PS: This quote is from a UN General Assembly, February 1, 2013.
“When the failure of States to take positive steps, or to refrain from interfering with health-care services, condemns patients to unnecessary suffering from pain, States not only fall [a]foul of the right to health, but may also violate an affirmative obligation under the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment.” And “the failure to ensure access to controlled medicines for the relief of pain and suffering threatens fundamental rights to health and to protection against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Governments must guarantee essential medicines – which include, among others, opioid analgesics – as part of their minimum core obligations under the right to health, and take measures to protect people under their jurisdiction from inhuman and degrading treatment” (page 12, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_English.pdf).
ChronicPainPariah.com 