For much of the 21st century, public health officials and policymakers have blamed doctors for overprescribing opioids and causing the overdose crisis. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued pain management guidelines aimed at reducing opioid prescriptions. Most states have codified them into law.

Federal and local drug task forces have arrested doctors whom they accuse of overprescribing opioids. This has led to a situation where many physicians either undertreat pain or choose to abandon their long-term pain patients. As a result, opioid prescribing has dropped below 1992 levels, while overdose deaths among nonmedical users have skyrocketed.

This crackdown has also created a population of “pain refugees”—chronic pain patients who have lost or were abandoned by their doctor and are left searching for a doctor willing to treat them. Many, out of desperation, turn to the black market for relief, while others resort to suicide.

Join us to discuss the pain refugee crisis, its causes, and potential solutions. Our panel includes a physician who treats and advocates for pain patients, an attorney who defends these doctors, a civil rights attorney who is also a patient advocate, and a pain refugee.

• “Cops Practicing Medicine,” by Jeffrey A. Singer and Trevor Burrus
• “Today’s Nonmedical Opioid Users Are Not Yesterday’s Patients,” by Jeffrey A Singer, Jacob Z Sullum & Michael E Schatman
• “ ‘Entire Body Is Shaking’: Why Americans With Chronic Pain Are Dying,” by Maia Szalavitz
• “As Doctors Taper or End Opioid Prescriptions, Many Patients Driven to Despair, Suicide,” by Elizabeth Llorente
• “The Clampdown on Opioid Prescriptions Is Hurting Pain Patients, by Kate M. Nicholson
• “Inside an American “Pill Mill”,” by Ron Chapman II, ESQ
• “Doctor Bison’s Fables: The Crowded Exam Room,” by Mark S. Ibsen, MD
• “X Post, regarding opioid prescribing” by Stefan Kertesz, MD, MSc
• “An Indictment of US Public Health Policy on Pain Management,” by Lawhern Richard A. PhD
• “Opioid Prescribing and the Ethical Duty to Do No Harm” by Kate M. Nicholson and Deborah Hellman