The whole obsession with punishing "drug seeking" with opiates can lead to vile outcomes, and I got a personal story to back that up. I've told this before on this website.

So one night after my swing shift there was a guy waiting for me outside my job's building, he was formerly homeless, and he told me one of my homeless friends was fucked up and needed help. Apparently they had met in rehab. So we hop in my truck (with a bed cover) and drive to the parking lot of one of those big box stores. My friend was sitting on a bench and in a ton of pain. He had been discharged from the hospital and they gave him like 2 pills for the pain - because of this "drug seeking" bullshit. He had fallen in the woods and he'd crawled out. He couldn't walk anymore. They didn't even give him an X-Ray, they just assumed he was drug seeking for opiates because he was open about being a heroin addict. Turns out his femur was fractured or maybe even broken - its been a long time and I can't remember the details. So we carry him and put him in the back of the truck so he could keep his leg straight. He was moaning in pain the entire time. Then we drive to the formerly homeless dude's apartment, a real Section 8 kinda place (government housing, for those not in the USA) with a lot of crime. Pretty fucking ghetto. We start trying to carry him up the stairs but we can't manage without my friend being in so much pain he kept screaming. Out of nowhere a dude shows up, cig hanging out of his mouth, and offers to help us. The kindness of strangers is something I will always appreciate. We managed to get him up there with as much comfort as we could muster and plunk him on the couch.

A few days later a member of the homeless community comes and finds me. My friend was in real bad shape. Really bad. So I drive over to the bus stop where he was being attended to by other members of that community, trying to comfort him. He's moaning in pain and kinda delirious. I took some first aid courses way back in the day so I touch his leg. It was swollen. It was hard to the touch. It was extremely warm. My immediate guess was Sepsis. Dude had blood poisoning. We couldn't afford or call an ambulance so we called a cab and I paid the fare and they all piled in there and got him to the hospital.

The doctors finally gave him life saving emergency care and a course of antibiotics and he lived. But he was really close to shit going so bad he might have lost the leg or died. I moved away a couple years later. I hope he's still alive. God damn whatever doctor or nurse that decided he didn't need an X-Ray. Blessings to the guy who came and got me, and the homeless who took care of him in that hour of dire need. And fuck forever the USA healthcare system. Motherfuckers almost killed someone because god forbid you "support a habit." Hard drugs are bad, needle drugs are worse, and fuck heroin. But also fuck the moralists and their bullshit that leads to these preventable outcomes, especially if you are in healthcare. "First do no harm," you pieces of shit. Don't discharge a person from the hospital because you don't want to bother doing a proper examination.