Genocide in America

I am sure after a title like that you are probably asking yourself, what in the hell is he talking about? I love this Country. I am a Viet Nam Veteran. I have never taken the freedoms we have in America for granted, but there are things going on that you almost never here about in the News Media. We have always had our share of things in the past, as a compassionate people, we are not proud of. Usually it is after the fact. Example: The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the so-called Insane asylums and things done to these poor people in the name of medicine in the 1940s-1960s. I once had the disgusting opportunity to tour one. Of course, who can forget the movie, "One flew over the Coo-Coo's nest". Actually, it wasn't far off the mark.

I'm sure you are saying O.K., so what has all of this got to do with genocide in present day America. If you knew what I know then you would understand when I say that we are in danger of becoming a "police state" and even now a certain group of people are already having their civil rights trampled on, profiled like comman criminals, accused of being drug addicts, having compassionate doctors raided, jailed and accused of running "pill mills", when in fact all they are guilty of in most cases, are keeping people like me alive.

There is a disease in this country right now that goes virtually ignored, untreated and stigmatized. That disease is Intractable Chronic Pain. I know, the usual reaction is hell, pain is not a disease. A little pain never killed anyone, besides I have been in pain before. If you are one of those people who feels that way, then my best friend, "Jesus Christ" said it best in the Book of Proverbs. "My People Perish for lack of knowledge".


I would say you are uneducated to what is going on at this very minute in this country and so would 72.5 Million other people who are in pain, with 30 million of those just like me, living in severe intractable chronic pain. I have another "news flash" for you. You could become like me in the blink of an eye. Doomed to a life of agony and unbearable pain for the rest of your life.

Once you breach the central nervous system, (spinal cord) in any way my friend, You are in for a life time of agony. It could be an auto accident, motorcycle, a simple fall, playing sports or in my case the results of a surgical procedure gone bad.

If you really want to know some of the things that are happening right now, click on this link http://painreliefnetwork.org/index.html .

I am dieing myself, from 25 years of unrelenting pain, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You get very little sleep and when you do fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, the pain will wake you up in an hour or two. As I write this blog it is 2:30 A.M. and I will probably go to sleep at 4:00-5:00 in the morning. I do this night after night and usually stop when the pain gets so bad I can no longer concentrate.


While it is true that the death certificate will never say that me or anyone in my situtation died of chronic pain, what usually happens is an organ failure, like a heart attack, stroke, etc. In the last 6 months, my blood pressure has gone from being perfect to extremely high. My doctor said it was from the stress of my body fighting pain. Thousands of people every year simply can fight no longer and take their own lives. My question is what is a person supposed to do when "they don't want to die", but they are in "to much pain to live" ?


So who is to blame for this "silent epidemic" as it is called? Truthfully their is plenty of blame to go around. There is a drug addiction problem in this country from people, most are not in pain, but usually take a number of different drugs at one time to get high, lack of education for not just the general public but doctors and the DEA also. For the present time in history, The GAO (govermental accounting office) issued a report that was highly critical of the DEA and their efforts to stem the flow of illegal narcotics. Then the Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzaliz so called "War on Drug dealers" which has turned out to be a "war on doctors and pain patients"


Of course the Senators and Congressmen who head up these powerful committees like nothing better than to get some cabinet head before them and chew their ass out to look good for the cameras. At the time Asa Hutchison was appointed DEA Czar and under pressure from Congress, started with a big media campaign, deliberately useing a new drug called Oxycontin that was and still is a drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of cancer and severe intractable chronic pain. So now instead of going after the bad guys, the drug smugglers, the short answer is they went after the soft targets. The poor chronic pain patient like myself who has no desire to take anything to get high. Instead we are the targets, and all we want is something to give us a few hours away from the painful, miserable, lonely existance we live. Something about this picture is terribly wrong. Its alright to let someone die just as long as you keep them from getting addicted.

What is your Doctor really writing in your health record?

I often wonder how many Chronic Pain Patients lives have been destroyed because of a doctor putting, not what you are telling him, but what he perceives that you are saying, in your medical records. As a person who has lived in Chronic pain for 25 years, the last 5 years being absolute torture and has been down this road many times, I can tell you, it happens every day. It has happened to me and if you are living in Chronic Pain, I can just about promise you that it has happened to you. Do you have a copy of your medical records now. If not and especially if you have been to several different doctors seeking treatment as most of us have, I would strongly advise you to obtain and keep as many of your records as possible. You might want to prepare yourself to be shocked!!, as to what you may find in them.

While a doctor's office should be a haven for the sick, that is no longer the case, especially for the person suffering from Chronic Pain. They still take your money, as they always have, and they will prescribe you anti-inflamatory, antidepressants, etc, but the minute you mention something stronger, for example, some type of opioid, you have just entered into an aggressive, non trusting relationship with your doctor. All of a sudden, you have become a drug addict, just looking for drugs. Never mind that you are in so much pain that you don't feel that you can go on any longer. Opioid phobia has just kicked in with your doctor and you have committed the unpardonable sin of asking for the only thing that will control your pain, especially if it is at the levels of mine.

Its not enough that people like you and me have to go through this demeaning process with the medical profession trying to find someone with the compassion and education to help us, we usually end up with junk and outright lies placed in our medical records that will haunt us the rest of our lives. Maybe that is one of the reasons that approximately 17,000 people suffering from Chronic Pain kill themselves every year.

Even though this happens everyday all over America, and even though it is a violation of Federal laws, State laws, its unconstitutional and certainly a violation of "human rights" it keeps happening. Why? Because in 1999 some accountant in the GAO reported that opioids especially

Oxycontin was being prescribed to much. Now what in the hell some accountant knows about what is to much to prescribe a person in Chronic Pain, I will never understand , but the committees and sub-committees in congress started holding hearings and hence President Bush and John Ashcroft started the "War on Drugs" with the help of the DEA.

Of course the doctors are now afraid to prescribe any type opioid for fear of the DEA. So what is going to happen to people like you and me? Nothing until we all get together and start demanding our rights. So do you want to be part of the solution or spend the rest of your life in pain. Personally, I hate doing this blog, because its talking about a subject that is my life, and I sit up late at night to write it and I am in pain. I spend a big portition of my life writing congress, working with advocacy groups and writing this blog. You may not be in pain now, but all it takes is an auto accident, a fall and you will find yourself in my world. So step up. We need you!!