My Doctor, My Dealer.

One of the five core social motives in social psychology is that we, as a people, need to trust our world. We need to see the world as a benevolent place. However, the sad fact is that we can't trust even the highest of professionals in our world. We sit with our ears and eyes glued to the news of the world and every day something comes out that a professional did something horrible and shocking. How can we trust in a world full of people who are motivated by greed?

The short answer is that we can't fully trust our world, but we can become more cautious and weary of the average individual. 

Yesterday we saw a doctor, Dr. Conrad Murray, whom people in his community loved and trusted get handcuffed in a court of law and taken to prison. This is a doctor who practiced for several years without absolutely no criminal record but what we discovered during his trial regarding Michael Jackson's death was that this doctor was no better than your average street corner dealer. This doctor stole drugs and was paid on a monthly basis to administer these drugs. I'm not saying Michael Jackson was completely guiltless in the entire situation, but in a way he was. We have to look at this situation at a macro level. This is NOT just happening in Michael Jackson's bedroom who suffered a severe addiction to pain killers and medications that would help him to sleep at night. We have to look at the BIGGER picture!

Rx Nation

We live in a nation that is dependent on prescription drugs. There are prescription drugs for nearly every ailment, condition, non-condition...you name it, they have it. Are we being given RX drugs for our actual medical conditions or are they being handed out like candy in order for doctors and pharmaceutical companies to profit off them? I'd like to think that's not the case but with the alarming number of people dying from prescription drug use we have to start opening our eyes.

We have many good doctors (thankfully more good than bad) but then we have doctors that succumb to the color of money (Now if only there was a drug for that!). Dr. Conrad Murray was accepting $150,000 a month from his high profile patient; that's an astronomical amount for Rx drugs. However, he was taking drugs illegally out of the hospital and administering them illegally. Dr. Conrad Murray crossed a line from professional and ethical doctor to DRUG DEALER with a license to deal. And he's not the only doctor doing this in our country. Take a look at this doctor who made nearly $1.8 million dealing Rx drugs: http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-downey-doctor-painkiller-sentenced,0,7602750.story

Being that so many people are dependent on drugs it's time that there be a more ethical system of checking patients for their "actual" medical ailments and not just giving out a prescription when a client says they have "back pain" or "I can't sleep at night". Doctors have to be more responsible because we now live in a world where street drugs are less evil then prescription drugs. Yes, prescription drugs are killing more people each year than illegal street drugs. And why? Because doctors are getting their patients dependent on these medications when they might have been far better off without them in the first place. Read more about what else Rx drugs have beaten in death tolls: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/prescription-drugs-number-one-cause-preventable-death-in-us.aspx

The message sent yesterday with Dr. Conrad Murray being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and taken out in handcuffs from court will hopefully send a STRONG message to doctors that are no better than the drug deals on the street corner. Sure, you have 10+ years of schooling behind you, a license to practice medicine in your state and probably the love of the community, but the really you're just a drug dealer when you cross the line of professional to scum and KILL your patients slowly.

Should our drug war now focus on doctors!? You decide. 

-Chris Ryan