My sister Chris is on the left and our mother and keeper of black walnuts is on the right
My sister lives with chronic pain from various medical conditions which to becoming disabled. She just told me about a doctor who is being investigated for over prescribing pain medication at his clinic. When she was healthy my sister was a pharmaceutical representative. So she knew a little something about medication. Then she had to learn a lot more once she became a patient. She also has a college degree and paid attention to the number and type of pills that the doctor was prescribing.
Chris found that she could not tolerate the medication and described the doctor’s waiting room as a kind of casting call for potential addicted people. You will not see stories about people like my sister in the flood of media coverage about opiod abuse largely because of the color of her skin. Today’s newspaper has an article about white millennials as the face of the crisis. But long before it was a white problem, there were African-Americans in pain clinics who were being given way too many pills. Chris escaped because she recognized what was going on and changed doctors.
A Little Local Color 