The Doctor Wasn't Cruel Enough: panic over oxycontin

Reason: "The Doctor Wasn't Cruel Enough": How one physician escaped the panic over prescription drugs:

"Some 90 percent of people who abuse Oxycontin also have histories of using cocaine and psychedelic drugs. Were most of these people innocent 'victims' of evil doctors? Isn't it more likely that they were prior heavy drug users who sought additional drugs and, because there's no objective way of measuring pain, were able to get them from compassionate doctors? Aren't doctors who do believe people's accounts of pain exactly the ones we want in practice?"

This reminds me of a recent encounter with medical fear of being prosecuted for "overprescribing" pain meds. My wife, who suffers from chronic back pain, called a back specialist to make an appointment. The doctor's secretary, before even beginning to ascertain the details of my wife's situation, bluntly stated: "We don't prescribe pain medication".
To which statement I reacted with open-mouthed astonishment. In other words, it doesn't matter if you are in real pain, it doesn't matter if the MRI shows you have 5 herniated disks, we're not going to give you any evil "drugs". Ridiculous! So legitimate sufferers go without pain-meds because the Feds are obsessed with controlling what Americans put into their own bodies???