As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I have some serious back problems. I had surgery 4 (almost 5) years ago to repair a disc at L5. After the surgery, I never recovered. I now have scar tissue around the spine that causes terrible pain in my lower back and down my legs into my feet. I've tried injection therapy, spinal cord stimulator twice (inserting a series of electrodes against the spinal cord and passing current through them to over-ride the pain impulses) and a morphine pump (drips a tiny amount of morphine directly into the spinal fluid). None of these procedures was successful so the only way that I can function is to control the pain with narcotics.
I guess this has all made me especially sensitive to politicians who try to portray legal narcotics as a scourge to make political hay. I ran across a like mind recently in Radley Balko, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Radley writes on many civil liberties issues, including the governments intrusion into the use of legal narcotics. I found this blog entry regarding a district attorney for Middlesex County, Mass who is crusading against the use of legal narcotics because users might get "accidentally" addicted. Radley's response was well thought out and right on the money--so much so, that I had to write a thank you. There is a long way to go, but we have to keep fighting the good fight to keep our civil liberties--glad to see someone fighting on my side.
I guess this has all made me especially sensitive to politicians who try to portray legal narcotics as a scourge to make political hay. I ran across a like mind recently in Radley Balko, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Radley writes on many civil liberties issues, including the governments intrusion into the use of legal narcotics. I found this blog entry regarding a district attorney for Middlesex County, Mass who is crusading against the use of legal narcotics because users might get "accidentally" addicted. Radley's response was well thought out and right on the money--so much so, that I had to write a thank you. There is a long way to go, but we have to keep fighting the good fight to keep our civil liberties--glad to see someone fighting on my side.
