"Tide turns in pain battle," (9/12/99) is the first in a new series by The Oregonian called "The puzzle of pain." The headline refers to a change, "tide turns," and a struggle, "pain battle." However, the story doesn't even hint that media propaganda has played a very large role in the struggle and in delaying the turning of the tide.
Over the past three years, particularly since the issue of assisted suicide arose, The Oregonian has run at least a dozen stories on pain and its treatment, for instance, 26 column inches on 7/13/99 , without once mentioning the "War on Drugs" as having anything to do with why old people, sick people, all kinds of people, in pain have found it increasingly difficult to get treatment and prescriptions for pain medications. On 7/1/99, The Oregonian cautiously supported relaxing some of the "wartime" restrictions on doctors' use of narcotics, but the paper's concern was to prevent use of narcotics in assisted suicides, not to correct the excesses of the drugwar mania.
Now, thanks to a "revolutionary" shift in the "tide," we learn the drug war has caused innocent casualties. It seems that for several decades the drug cops have scared the hell out of doctors who became more and more cautious and reluctant to prescribe narcotics. Patients in chronic pain became labeled by medical information services as "drug seekers" and were denied pain relief on that basis.
The important question is why did it take so long for the story to break in The Oregonian? The answer is that The Oregonian is part of the apparatus (politicians, religions, and media) which demonizes things. Once a person, place, or thing is demonized, it can be a long and tedious process to restore some moderation and sense. In the case of narcotics, the War on Drugs and drug crime have been favorite stories for decades. Articles on the beneficial properties of narcotics for relief of pain and stress are complex and the popular media likes its story-values in black and white. Shades of gray are too complicated for the American public. However, once in a while the propaganda apparatus has to try and take some of the hype back - still without admitting the media was part of the problem all along.