It's spooky what people say about painkillers

This article is being written in the run-up to Halloween when everyone with a playful disposition applies make-up, sticks on SFX bullet wounds and acts the part of one of the living dead or some creature escaping from a horror movie. Once a year, it's good therapy to pretend to be seriously injured. Except the rest of the year, there are millions of people who have to get up in the morning and struggle to school or work. For them, the reality is anything but fun. They are the foot soldiers in the war against pain and, for the majority, this means relying on medication to get through the day. Interestingly, the latest piece of research out of Boston University shows a significantly higher number of people using an opiate painkiller than found in earlier studies. This increase may be due to better research methods, the fact that people are more prepared to be honest about their drug use, or that more people have come to rely on drugs to control their pain.

The research was run through a telephone survey. The team randomly picked 20,000 adults and called them up to ask about their drug use. Using statistics to scale up the numbers across the country, the researchers conclude that, at any one time, about 4 million adult Americans are regularly taking an opioid drug for pain relief. This suggests that a large number of adults feels pain of sufficient intensity to justify taking a prescription-only drug. This is worrying on two counts. First that so many people experience such serious pain. Secondly, that they should be resorting to powerful drugs to control it. This is not to say that people should not take powerful drugs. Obviously, anyone in serious pain must have the right to take the best drug to control it. But there is an inference that people are actually abusing these powerful drugs. In many states, it's a criminal offense to be in possession of these drugs without a prescription. When you buy tramadol online, there's no need to produce a prescription. The pharmacist will ask a number of questions designed to test whether you can safely take the drug. If you give the right answers, you get the drug without the need to supply a prescription. Thus, the only people likely to admit taking a powerful painkiller are either those who have a prescription or those who do not know the criminal law.

Put simply, people have changed their attitude to pain. Twenty and more years ago, there was more respect for powerful drugs. People hesitated before taking them. Today, many casually take these drugs for a headache or a level of pain that previously would have been tolerated. Cheap tramadol is available to buy online without a prescription. This removes many of the safeguards that kept these drugs for the more serious conditions. Now, anyone can store them in their bathroom cabinets against the possibility of pain. In a sense, the problem is that tramadol has become so well-recognized as an effective painkiller, people routinely turn to it. This suggests the need to educate the public into a more responsible attitude to the opioids. Just because you can buy tramadol online so cheaply, does not mean you should.