Pete -

What to do? First things first, I invite anyone to go the Dr. Okie's "perspective article" with a fine tooth comb and send some scathing letters to the editor of the NEJM, not that they will be published. Better yet, encourage your doctors to do so. Off hand, I think the best attack is a numbers game: I suspect there are far many more people in intractable pain in this country than who perish through recreational abuse if these drugs: by several orders of magnitude. Whether our population is equaled by a group of abusers in Appalachia is another matter, but then the argument becomes the immorality of condemning some to pain just so other can't have what passes for fun. (Somewhere, the cold hand of Calvin has to be involved in this one.)

For specific information, the best source right now appears to be the American Pain Foundation. Here's their page on the subject: http://www.painfoundation.org/take-a...fforts/wa.html

Purdue Pharmaceuticals (maker of OxyContin) probably has a good hand on the numbers as well. It's a corporate sponsor of the RSDSA, so Jim Broatch might be a good point of contact.

Just a few thoughts . . .

Mike