Friday, February 22, 2013

Speaking of that gun-grabbing busybody midget...

Now that "Faces of Meth" has scared the snot out of pretty people and pyrotechnic trailer park follies make the stuff seem déclassée, apparently prescription drug abuse is the new "drug of choice" among the fiscally solvent and melanin-deprived kids. It's been a long time since I set foot in a night club, and I'm having a hard time picturing how one would manage 150 BPM with Percocet coming out one's ears, but, you know, kids these days...

Anyway, selling stuff that is hard to get, addictive, and illegal tends to attract criminal activity, and prescription drugs are no different, and Mayor Bloomberg, America's Busybody, is going to put a stop to that, just you watch!

See, if you don't let the little people put too much soda in a cup, then they won't get fat and gross-looking unhealthy, right? And if you don't let them put too many bullets in their double-barrel shotgun's clip, then they won't do these spree killings, right? So, if you only let them take home three days' worth of narcotics at one time...

Friends and neighbors, this one hits in my wheelhouse. I spent a summer in a wheelchair with 75% of my limbs in casts from major fractures, all of which had required surgical repair. I was in a lot of pain. Every week or two, my ex- had to take time off work, a major hassle for him, to cart my wheelchair-bound carcass to the hospital for physical therapy or some other medical reason. To have expected him to take every third day off just to refill a dope bottle would have been, quite simply, an impossibility.

I was over the prescription stuff and down to a couple of Ibuprofen a day after the first month or so, and I don't think I have any of the old bottles left among my hospital souvenirs. I might still have my little four-footed cane I used to re-learn how to walk. I'd like five minutes alone in a room with me, it, and that smug know-it-all micromanaging finger-wagging putz in Gracie Mansion.

How much longer are you gonna let that cut-price Napoleon stink up your city, Gothamites?

46 comments:

Bubblehead Les. said...

Well, Mickey Bloomberg is SUPPOSED to be out of Office soon, but something tells me there's an opportunity to take over George Soros spot as the Multi-Billionare Nanny-State Funding Overlord as soon as George kicks off, so the Republic may have him around for a LONG time.

Tam said...

His Wikipedia page says he's a rated rotary-wing pilot and he's on the waiting list for one of the first AgustaWestland civil aviation tilt-rotors.

They shouldn't keep an important dude like him waiting! They need to rush through that flight test and QC program and get one into his hands, even if it means cutting a few corners to speed things up.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

And if you don't let them put too many bullets in their double-barrel shotgun's clip, then they won't do these spree killings, right?

I see what you did there.

Critter said...

slightly OT, but these folks seem to be in your neck of the woods.

http://rangetimets.com/

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

You know, I have a very old and dear friend who is managing chronic pain with oxycontin -- the only thing that gives him any relief. Nurse Bloomberg would take even that away from him.

But I figure NYC deserves Bloomie as much as he deserves NYC. It's when he tries to tell the rest of us what to do that he gets annoying. Particularly when he breaks the law (can anyone say "straw purchases"?) to do it.

Spud said...

I suppose this would include myself. Way back in 72 had ta get out of a Wild Weasel the hard way...ever since then my backs been a might screwed up so the VA issues me "Happy pills" on an as needed basis.
Wouldn't that just be peachy to have ta re-order every three frickin days lol. After a track record of over 30 yrs. the Doctors trust me to self regulate, yet nanny plebes in the gov. say that this can't be allowed ? JEEZUS K !
Vote em all out !

Tam said...

Critter,

I am nowhere near tactical enough to hang with Cory and Erica.

Dave said...

Every time I read a 'war on pain patients' piece like this, I find myself hoping the busybodies painful and incurable, but not quickly fatal; then are hoist on their own petard when they find the policies they pushed for won't let them treat the pain of their bone cancer or crushed disks or whatever.

It's probably because my dad was a chronic pain guy. A Dr. specializing in pain relief kept him mobile and lucid, with a high quality of life for his last decade or so. The idea that modern medical treatments like that are becoming harder for the people who need them to get due to busybody puritans pisses me off.

Dave said...

Hoping the busybodies develop something painful and incurable. I need more coffee before I try typing this early in the morning...

Tam said...

Busybodies are indeed painful and incurable. I am sure they were writing dumb millet-growing regulations in the administrative temples on the banks of the Tigris. Like the poor, they will always be with us.

Angus McThag said...

Spud, you lucky bastard being a Nam era vet.

The VA don't issue pain meds to Army people from the cold war era. Doc confirmed.

I'm OTC for my pain management. Ibuprofen don't cut it most days.

Not that I'm bitter or anything...

Anonymous said...

" I'd like five minutes alone in a room with me, it, and that smug know-it-all micromanaging finger-wagging putz in Gracie Mansion."

If you pursue the above venue, please put me down for two tickets.

NAVIGATOR said...

CONSIDER THE USE OF HYPNOSIS FOR EFFECTIVE PAIN CONTROL NO SIDE EFFECTS PATIENT REMAINS LUCID AND IT DOES NOT ADVANCE THE PROGRESSION OF
DISEASE AS OPIATES CAN USEFUL FOR ACUTE AND CHRONIC PAIN

Chalkie said...

IT WAS GREAT. IT WAS BETTER THAN CATS. I'LL SEEK PAIN RELIEF AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Library-Gryffon said...

Bloomberg would seem to be trying to be a real-life Dr. Cocteau (Demolition Man). He just forgot to watch the rest of the movie.

Joel said...

I read somewhere last week that Bloomie is planning to pull a Putin: He's got a tame replacement all picked out on the city council or something. Wasn't paying that much attention.

Robert Langham said...

End the drug war. All of it. Sell that stuff off the shelf along with anything anyone else wants.

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

What Anonymous @ 0832 said. S#!t like Bloomers is pulling is why, until recently, I would have to call a doc to beg permission to give them morphine to a patient with a limb bent 90° in a place that's not supposed to bend - and certain docs were so afraid of getting a visit from the DEA that they would always say no.

Medicine should be practiced by medical professionals, not politicians. (Say, maybe someone should charge Bloomers with practicing medicine without a license?)

Mike_C said...

Opposed as I am to this latest edict, and many of his lordship's other decrees, this only applies (so far!) to pain medications dispensed IN THE ER, per the cited link:

"City health officials said ... drugs would still be available outside the emergency room."

Which implies that you can still get your 30-day (or whatever) supply from your regular doctor.

One seemingly small detail that I nevertheless find particularly nasty, basically dogpiling injury onto insult, is the "lost [or] STOLEN prescriptions will not be refilled." This places a disproportionate burden on those who have no primary doctors, but rely on the ER all their care. (Which also really sucks from a healthcare resource utilization perspective, but that's a bigger problem outside the scope of this rant.) Most of the folks I know on chronic pain meds are not happy about it, and would rather not have to take them, but really need the drugs to be functional. Old, poor people, natural targets of all sorts of crime, including getting your drugs taken from you, would now seem to have no recourse should they be victimized.

Bloomberg's policies (and those of his ilk) are about collective punishment to remedy the bad behavior of some. This particular issue will result in disproportionately punishing the most vulnerable.

Still, all that said, I've been on the other end of "Hey doc, I'm in 10/10 pain and I need dilaudid. I'm allergic to regular morphine, so you gotta give me dilaudid. I can only take it IV, and I need to push the needle cause I get nauseous when the nurse does it. And can ya move, yer between me and the TV." From a guy lounging at his ease and drinking a soda. Infuriating as that is (mainly because this shit takes time I could be using to see a patient with actual medical problems, and because if you want to con drugs out of me, please put a little more effort into it -- this feeble effort is insulting), I don't want or need Big (or maybe Little in MB's case) Daddy telling me, in detail, how to practice medicine.

bob r said...

"I'd like five minutes alone in a room with me, it, and that smug know-it-all micromanaging finger-wagging putz in Gracie Mansion."

I'd give good money to help that come about.
I'd pay extra if I could watch.

Anonymous said...

"Nurse Bloomberg would take even that away from him"

Sorry, but this is an outrageous insult to nurses, the gunnery sergeants of the health care world.

Alath
Carmel IN

Anonymous said...

Tam,

Sadly, the part you are missing is that New Yorkers WANT what Bloomberg is offering. NYC dwellers could care less if Bloomberg shovels the snow from the streets, or picks up the trash -- as long as he "cares", nothing else matters. NYC is a microcosm of what America will look like when the Obama Revolution reaches its endpoint.

Unfortunately, New Yorkers refuse to stay put in their hellhole of a town. Many move, to otherwise sane jurisdictions (VA, FL, TX, etc.) and demand things be done as they were in NYC. Alternatively, the NYC viewpoint is pushed to all corners of the country via the NYC-based mass media. Their concerns become our concerns; their fears, our fears; their solutions, our solutions.

Yet, in all this, do not forget: the urban masses crave the feeling of security above all else. Bloomberg obliges. Liberty is a racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic construct that must be regulated, controlled, and ultimately eliminated.

Discobobby said...

Chalkie -
Love your work in Chicago - keep it going! Nice to see you here from SCC, it's an honor. :) Don't mind NAVIGATOR, he's good people, he just can't post in lowercase.

Pookie says hi.

og said...

One of the issues is that they're not allowed (Supposedly) to profile drug seekers in some ERs. I don't know if NYC falls in that or not.

OT: "I spent a summer in a wheelchair with 75% of my limbs in casts "

I have been lucky enough- and it was all luck, certainly not skill or caution- never to have been injured as badly as you have, but I have had plenty of casts/wraps/ immobilizations. Do you, as I do, go to the littlest room in the house, thankful to God each time that you can do so alone?

Stuart the Viking said...

So, wouldn't having to go back to the pharmacy for pain meds every 3 days mean that you would have to PAY YOUR COPAY each time? Probably.

This is bad bad very bad for those poor people who can barely afford health care in the first place. If course, those in government usually don't care about the poor beyond the lip service they pay in order to get elected.

s

Chalkie said...

Dangit, there must be another Chalkie. I'm not the one from SCC. Sorry to disappoint you, Discobobby.

I should probably come up with a unique moniker.

Goober said...

All of these politicians that are making it more difficult to get painkillers have never felt chronic debilitating pain. Not the way I have. Not for years on end. Not to the point to where every morning you're debating whether the pill bottle or a 357 magnum would be better at dulling the pain. If Bloomberg had his way I'd have died seven years ago because the additional hassle of working around his bullshit to get my meds would probably have tipped the balance and the 357 would have won out.

If you haven't been in chronic debilitating pain you have no place in this debate.

Sebastian said...

His Wikipedia page says he's a rated rotary-wing pilot and he's on the waiting list for one of the first AgustaWestland civil aviation tilt-rotors.

Even without cutting corners, the big problem with tilt rotors is that they can't autorotate. If a helicopter's engine cuts, you can still land it safely using the stored energy in the rotating blades. If you lose an engine on a tilt rotor while hovering, you're fucked, generally speaking. Tilt rotors are more dangerous than helicopters, which is saying something because helicopters aren't the safest way in the world to fly. Generally speaking, I prefer my wings fixed. I wouldn't bet my life too many times on anything that has a part called a Jesus nut.

So I have to agree. When it comes to flying rotorcraft, live the life the way you want to live it, Mike Bloomberg, and don't let the man keep you down!

Anonymous said...

I doubt Bloomie has shopped or waited in line for than 50 years. He doesn't need more than three days of Viagra, he just sends someone to get more when he's on Day 2.

Gerry

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg leaving office by natural causes would be a national tragedy. Politicians of his ilk need to be thrown from office. Preferably through a window.

JD Rush said...

I recall Bloomberg rambling on about how going to the pharmacy more would also expose you to less crime. Because you would have fewer pills stolen each time they robbed you. Looks like the Times left that part out.

Matt G said...

"And if you don't let them put too many bullets in their double-barrel shotgun's clip..."


[Twitch.]
Oof.
[Twitch.]

Kristophr said...

A clip-fed double barrel shotgun would be really cool.

A mating between a fine English double and a clip feed Victorian semi-auto pistol?

Steam-punk-gasms!

Steve Skubinna said...

A clip-fed double barrel shotgun would be really cool.

No sweat, I think Kel-Tec's working on it.

Anonymous said...

My son takes an anti-psychotic medication. I suppose I am to take one day in three off to get medication? How about getting it filled on Friday, and then needing to get it refilled on Monday.

Perhaps we could arrange to reduce the term of office for NYC mayor to 3 days, and for NYC voters in order to reelect Bloomie, have to take one day in three off to do so.

Anonymous said...

Me, I just want a single barrel shot gun that feeds from two magazines, with a switch that detects the follower, and switches feed to the other (full mag) side.

With #1 buckshot, 3 inch magnums, and 20 rounds of 12 gauge in each mag, that could be quite a social statement.

Anonymous said...

Defenestration? In Prague that didn't work out too well, the politicans landed on heaps of garbage.

Sigivald said...

"Drug of choice"/"Most addictive drug ever" rotates regularly.

Otherwise there's no news cycle.

Mark said...

"Every time I read a 'war on pain patients' piece like this, I find myself hoping the busybodies (develop something) painful and incurable, but not quickly fatal; then are hoist on their own petard when they find the policies they pushed for won't let them treat the pain of their bone cancer or crushed disks or whatever."

(missing words from next comment supplied for clarity).

You miss the point. Bloomberg and his buddies will get all the painkillers they want, they can be TRUSTED with them you know.

I've made the following comment in so many places I fear I'm on a list somewhere, but here goes. Bear in mind that Donald Trump and Robert DeNiro possess NYC CCW's. There are a handful of unrestricted CCWs in NYC that don't belong to the police or retired cops, and they ALL belong to the politically connected. So Mr "You Talkin' Ta Me?" can carry a pistol, legally, in NYC while everyone else has to rely on rape whistles and cell phone calls to NYPD.

I work in NYC, and deal with NYers every day. They LOVE Bloomberg, and the WANT to be told what they can and can't do. Kneeling is their natural state.

global village idiot said...

Not Kel-Tec, Steve...

If anyone develops a clip-fed double-barreled shotgun, it'll be Chiappa.

gvi

Jeffrey Deutsch said...

Great point, Mike_C. And if I'm not mistaken -- please correct me if I am -- prescription painkillers are especially sought after by freelance redistributionists.

Meanwhile, we all might find this (Seattle-area) ER doctor's perspective interesting.

Jeff Deutsch

PS: Anonymous @ 2:00 PM, that's already happened in the Big Apple.

Joseph said...

A few years ago, somebody came up with the idea that, since the U.S. is so influential, we should allow the people of the whole world vote in our elections. My reaction was that it made just as much sense to allow everybody in the U.S. to vote in NYC elections.

The idea looks a little less absurd now.

Larry said...

Even without cutting corners, the big problem with tilt rotors is that they can't autorotate.


somehow I believe that was sort of the point...

Spud said...

Angus,
Don't know that I'd consider myself "lucky" ta need the pain management lol.Just says I'm old nuff to have been there.Much rather be younger... But I do see where you're coming from.

Pakkinpoppa said...

I'm a little rusty....but I believe there was a double barrel "clip" fed shotgun in the Disney 'Toon, "The Rescuers", held by the antagonist.

When I got older and discovered that was "cartoonist license" I was sad such a device didn't exist.

Aesop said...

I'm just wondering when, and from whence, Major Ja... I mean Mayor Jack@$$ graduated medical school.

But I hope someone cracks him across the jaw one day soon, breaks it, and the actual doc writes him for 6 Vicodins, and makes him wait in the ER a full 9 hours every time he wants a refill.