Sessions vs the Opioid
Matt Seinberg

"Take some aspirin and tough it out." That's the solution, offered by US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions (above), for the opioid epidemic slicing through America. He said that on Friday 13 July 2018, during a meeting at his office in Tampa, Florida, I wonder if this little man has ever been in such severe pain, at any time in his life, that he followed his own advice.

Opioid drugs have weird side effects.

I suffer from severe back pain. Over the years, I took many different types of pain medication, from ibuprofen to Oxycodone. Here's my problem with any opioid-based drug, they work only for the first two or three days and that's it. After that, it keeps me up at night; the other big problem is it causes extreme constipation.

My experience is that for every day you take an opioid-based drug, you back up for two days. I have first-hand experience. I was on Oxycodone for five days and it took ten days to become normal again.

When I envision Jeff Sessions, I see Kate McKinnon doing her parody of him on Saturday Night Live. McKinnon portrays Sessions as such a little weasel. Actually, her portrayal gives weasels and lounge lizards a bad name.

There’s nothing in little Jeff Sessions that’s hilarious, other than he always looks as if he just emerged from a circus-clown car. Unfortunately, having an idiot like that as the top lawyer in the country is scary. He’s an essential part of the deconstruction of America that Trump is overseeing.

Sessions recommendation, of "tough it out," was similar to a remark he made after a speech, on Tuesday, at The Heritage Foundation (THF), where he said, "Sometimes you just need to take two Bufferin or something and go to bed." The THF is as an organisation with little sympathy.

Does Jeff Sessions have any compassion for people in chronic pain? Does he have compassion for women and men that can't get much relief from physical therapy, surgery, acupuncture or homeopathic medicine? I think not.

Maybe the next step for some of these people is medical marijuana. Although there are plenty of dispensaries, here in New York State, with more slated to open, actually getting the prescription is the hard part. Physicians need certification, by the state, to write the actual prescription; not any physician can do it. Sessions seems to be blocking this treatment, too.

The Alice B Toklas Cookbook.

New York State isn't Colorado where you can walk in off the street and buy buds of pot. The medical marijuana here is in liquid or pill form. Do you remember the marijuana brownies that were so popular in the 1960s and 1970s? Bake up your favourite batch and add the cannabis liquid and you're good to go. Remember Alice B Toklas, her recipes for THC-loaded brownies.

I haven't had the occasion to try the medical stuff ever or even the real stuff in many years. That's one thing about good parenting, being able to set a good example for our kids by not doing recreational drugs. If my pain management physician me that my pain could no longer be controlled without invasive procedures and maybe I should try medical marijuana, I would think long and hard before using it. It would probably take me all of five minutes, if that long, to render a positive answer.

If Jeff Sessions doesn't suffer from chronic pain, there is no reason he should make decisions or offer opinions for those that do; if he does suffer chronic pain, let’s hear the details. Chronic pain is debilitating and can literally suck the life right out of a person. I so wonder if Sessions does have chronic pain and uses opioids to manage it.  Wouldn’t that be a typical conservative tactic?

Here's a scenario I would love to see or even hear about. It's late at night, and president 45 is meeting with the VP, Sessions, Mitch McConnell and Rudy Giuliani. They're drinking Jack Daniels. Suddenly, Rudy whips out a joint and says to them all, "You really have to try this shit! It's the best I've ever had!"

They pass around the joint and the loose lips become even looser. All of a sudden, New York senior Senator, Chuck Schumer, enters the Oval Office. He sees what's going on, whips out his smart phone and takes some pictures. The next day, all hell breaks loose and everyone caught smoking pot in the Oval Office resigns. Oh, if only dreams were to come true.

Put the blame where it belongs.

The point is, yes, there is an opioid crisis in this country. It's because pharmaceutical companies push physicians to prescribe opioids because, of claims, there aren't enough viable alternatives. Just because you have a prescription for the drug doesn't mean you have to use. Due to my lack of response to such drugs, I barely take them.

I wrote a column last year about prescription drugs, which you can read here. Sometimes the cure is worse than the symptom.