Merrick doctor wants pain pill case tossed

[Warpy]

5. I honestly don't think it's the fact that he wrote scrips for 120 pills at a time,

the real problem for his "patients" was what kind of scrips they were, for long acting oxycodone. Yes, somebody who stays on opiates 24/7 is going to need a higher dose after a few weeks. Yes, they're going to get dependent on that drug.

They'll hang this guy out to dry, of course, but he does have a point about Big Pill and their relentless advertising of OxyContin as a safer drug for both short and long term pain control. It's not.

I get 270 pills per prescription, myself, but that's for 3 months and they're short acting, just enough to give me a few hours of relief a day so I can get things done. Again, it's not the number of pills. It's the type.

The pharmaceutical industry does bear some of the blame for the number of people dependent on opiates.