Today You Can Make A Better Tomorrow

Dear Legislator:

My wife was in a traffic accident in 2003 and has lived with terrible pain every day.  She is on painkillers and she is careful to just take as few as possible to get through the day.  I have often seen her hold back tears because the painkillers are not strong enough.  She is strong-willed and she is very careful to not take as much as she could, because she fears becoming dependent on the painkillers.

She has been taking synthetic codeine at a relatively high dose for eleven years now, and has managed to not fall prey to overuse.  She has terrible leg pain, and the doctors know her case well, and her use of the painkillers is well monitored by her doctors.  It is very difficult to get her and the wheelchair out of the house.  We try to schedule medical and dental visits to minimize the number of times we have to get her into the car to go out.

Now, you have passed a bill preventing out normal physicians from prescribing her medicine.  Now, she has to go see a doctor far away so he can validate her need for her medicine.  This is painful and very inconvenient.  I do not understand why legitimate patients like my wife are being punished for the behavior of others.

Yes, we understand that the Legislature is trying to save the kids who abuse medicine.  We understand that you want to minimize the deaths of the few hundred people who overdose each year in our state.

But in saving those few hundred, you have punished hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens.  In your haste to save a few dozen drug abusers, you have inflicted needless pain and suffering on many thousands Illinoisans.

Please rewrite the law so that innocent people who need their medicine are not punished in your attempt to modify the behavior of the fools who abuse drugs.

The measure that was passed that went into effect this month is simplistic and will never achieve your goal of ridding our state of drug users.  What you have done is make these patients many who are senior citizens more depressed by making them suffer more pain.  I fear there are thousands, who are crying in pain every morning, every night.

Every time you eat please remember the many thousands of innocent people who are crying for pain, at that very moment.  Before your law, these people has a level of control over their pain.  You have taken their hope away.

Please use your power to ease the pain of your constituents, not increase it.  The measure probably looked good for you legislators, so you can posture that you are hard on crime and drug use.  But, despite your good intent, you have imposed a painful sentence on the people who elected you to protect them.

Please fix this law.

My wife, and the thousands of others who depend on pain killers deserve better from you.  I have been pricing drugs on the black market and to mi great surprise, street heroin is cheaper than buying medicine from the hospitals and pharmacies.  The downside, is you never know what strength the next does will be, or what other substances have been added to stretch the drug for more sales.

So don’t make Grandma and Grandpa criminals for wanting to not live their final years in pain.  Allow people with self control who take their medicine properly to have the drugs they need. Drugs they had legally before your meddling legislation.