I recently had the unfortunate experience of getting sick while on vacation, so sick that I spent several hours in ‘Express Care,’ which is kinda like the emergency room, but it’s for people who are technically speaking suffering from an emergency health problem yet it is unlikely that they will actually die if they don’t see a doctor within the next 5 or 6 hours.

At the conclusion of my Express Care visit I was given a prescription which contained 4 different medications, 3 of which were pain meds. After deciding that I only needed one pain medication, I took my ‘script to the closest Walgreen’s and presented my medical card and prescription to the pharmacist–I let him know that I only wanted one of the medicines, the strongest pain medication.

Mr. Pharmacist informed me that my medical insurance, which is the state of Illinois Medicaid plan, i.e., insurance for poor people, does not allow me to have any prescriptions filled outside of the state in which I live. My guess is that the state figures poor people have no business leaving their state of residence to go on vacation–or for any other reason for that matter, thus there is no reason to allow them to get valid prescriptions filled in any other state.

I was also informed by Mr. Pharmacist that if I still wanted any of the medicines, I would have to purchase ALL 4 OF THE MEDINES WHICH WERE PRESCRIBED TO ME. Only purchasing the pain medication was not allowed under North Carolina state law. According to the pharmacist, this law was enacted in order to cut down on the number of drug seeking people who were only trying to get pain medication. Obviously, this makes absolutely no freaking sense.

What this man told me was that I could purchase ALL THREE pain medications that I was being prescribed, but I could not purchase only one pain medication. Does that make any sense once-so-ever, or does it just not make any sense to me? This law sounds like a way to harangue poor people and keep them from getting access to the pain medications that they need rather than a genuine attempt to keep prescription drug addicts from being able to feed their habit. After all, if I have the cash to pay for the three medications then I have the option of using whichever medicine I choose and then selling or throwing away the rest at my discretion. But if I can’t afford to pay for all of the medications on my prescription then I cannot choose to pay for the truly important medicine–the pain meds–that I need, and I will have to go without any relief; clearly anyone with half a brain should be able to see how a dilemma such as this could drive a person who needs pain relief to purchase street drugs or buy some pain medicine from a friend or acquaintance that has been prescribed to someone else.

I left the pharmacy without getting any medication. Luckily I have pain meds at home and I’ll be going back to the doctor soon enough. This preoccupation that law makers have with doing everything they can to avoid giving medicines to people that they believe are drug-seeking has already led to at least one high-profile case where a woman ended up dying due to lack of treatment.

Those who truly care about not providing drugs to addicts would focus on drug usage prevention programs and treatment programs for those who are addicted. But since the law makers are more interested in the punitive treatment of poor people than they are in helping poor people, the ruse of a war on drugs continues unabated.