> They don't work to treat the pain and the patient develops a tolerance and so ends up taking large quantities putting their health at risk. That's not how op

> They don't work to treat the pain and the patient develops a tolerance and so ends up taking large quantities putting their health at risk. That's not how opioid tolerance works. As dose needed to achieve desired effect (analgesia) increases, so does does needed to cause respiratory depression. It's not like there's a single fixed lethal dose and the hapless addict is drawn into it closer and closer. Anyway the overwhelming majority of opioid-related deaths, at least in US, occur with concomitant use of benzodiazepines or EtOH (which is something inherently dangerous) and that is, if anything, an argument against prohibition, since people potentiating their opioids with EtOH or benzos is pretty flagrantly downstream of scarcity of opioids. Long-term use of pharmaceutical-grade opioids (in precisely measured doses, and without the scarcity that drives people to compound with alcohol or benzos) is far safer than you imply it is. It's prohibition that's made opioid use perilous, not the actual pharmacological qualities of the drugs (which have been used by humanity for millennia by now). > People should have access to pain management clinics. ...pain management clinics that do what, besides prescribe opioids? Fix the actual root cause? Do surgery?