>Delivered-To: chronicpain@apollo.dns-solutions.net >Date: 14 Feb 2000 04:40:10 -0000 >From: jim@goedhart.com >To: chronicpain@list.goedhart.com >Subject: [chronicpain] Pain does not have a Moral Value >Sender: owner-chronicpain@list.goedhart.com >Reply-To: chronicpain@list.goedhart.com > >Here's one of my favorite messages by some doctor. Don't really know him, >or who he is but he has the right idea. The next time your doctor says you >can't have the medication you need for pain, hand him this. This really >says it all. > >----------------------- > >----------------------- > "Pain does not have a moral value. Drugs cannot have a moral value: >----------------------- >they're pills. The thing that has a moral value is life. Life is good. >Life is a gift. Life should be cherished. Life should be promoted. life >should be supported. That's what we're supposed to do. We should not be >moralizing about whether pills are good or bad. If you are sick and can >use a pill to live your life, if taking pills let you live your life, >take care of your children and be a part of your community, then that >pill sustains your life and is good. If someone is a drug addict and >they can't deal with their lives, they take a pill to escape their >lives, because they can't face the problems they have to deal with, and >now because of that same pill they are not living, they are abusing the >drug: that pill is bad. The pill is not good or bad, it's how it relates >to life." > Dan Brookoff, MD, Internal Medicine and >Medical > Oncology, Memphis TN >