File this 'fact' under "you can buy a gun on any street corner in America."
After my second major lower back surgery in 2002 and realizing I liked the painkillers "a bit too much" I got off off them and asked for non-narcotic pain killers. My Orthopaedic Neurosurgeon thought I was nuts but wrote a script for a non-narcotic painkiller anyway.
I will not sit here and say the non-narcotic drugs worked as well on the pain (they did not) they did however take the edge off of the pain and the side-effects from the narcotics thankfully subsided.
My third and fourth lower back surgeries in 2007 and again in 2009 were followed by non-narcotic pain management which for me worked pretty well. I may be somewhat of an exception, I'm a redhead and we're known for having high pain thresholds.
Fast forward to today: I have an inflammatory disease of the spine called Ankylosing Spondylitis which is QUITE painful at times. Besides the anti-inflammatories which wreak havoc on my digestive system, I have nerve pain management meds to take as well.
Can marijuana help here? YES, and it does. I use Cannibis Oil which is a legal product and available on Amazon of all places. Research has proven its health benefits specific to inflammation and inflammation related diseases with zero side effects. I use it daily to manage my Ankylosing Spondylitis related symptoms and pain, it works wonderfully.
I'm not "high" all the time as there's no THC in it and I'm able to reduce the amount of the expensive medications that tear up my digestive system I take as a result. I'd really like to get OFF those medications and onto just the cannibis oil if at all possible since this is a natural product vs. these complex compounded meds that have some nasty side effects.
Just my own experience since you asked about opiates being "given away." My experience? Yes they were and I believe doctors were incentivized to do it based on how they were pushed on me and how easy they were to get.
The doper kids all know the Candyman doctors in our county.
My step-son did about 18 months in state prison when he got busted DUI+possession on his way back from one of these doctors.
It’s not propaganda.