It was the pills!!! except it wasn't. Why do all the initial stories on the tragic death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman star with the assumption that his death has something to do with prescription drugs. No prescription drugs were found but this detail doesn't interest reporters. The reason this matter is that no one has fewer rights than intractable pain patients who benefit from Oxycontin. These people are continually demonized and fewer MD's will treat a new patient. This is a problem if one MD dies. The kind of pain we are talking about is rated ( McGill [pain scale) as being worse than childbirth. Any disparaging attention these life saving drugs get makes life harder for people who have a world of problems already. A true pain patient cannot become an addict. If someone says they are addicted it means they have recovered and kept taking meds despite this recovery. Anything else does not count, really. If they have testimony it was the vicodins for his teeth work that undid all Mr Hoffman's years of clean-ness, I will modify this, but I have not heard actual testimony that this was the case. Only baseless speculation.
I also find it hilarious that the experts are saying an unintended consequence of changing the Oxycontin to be less bio-available ( cannot snort or inject, but also does not work as well on patients as too much is excreted.) is that people switch to illegal drugs when the semi-legal ones become expensive or un available. If a pain patient cannot take the pain and turns to illegal drugs, instead of this being seen as a sign of grievous under treatment it is held against them. Now they are saying this is a driver of heroin use. Anyone look behind the story. The media is addicted to drug war hysteria. Oxycontin sold for $80 a pill because it had a full advertising campaign on the evening news. Meanwhile RSD and Fibromyalgia patients who need strong opioids have to endure having to prove they are not a junky with the caveat that junkies lie, and all their friends lie, so one cannot testify in one's own behalf. Is it a 'Catch 22? None worse!!!