This episode documents how pain care in the United States was dismantled, not accidentally, but through deliberate policy choices that elevated addiction medicine over pain treatment and left millions of patients behind.

Bev Schechtman, Vice President of The Doctor Patient Forum (DPF), walks through the history of opioid policy, the rise of addiction medicine’s influence over pain care, and the real-world consequences for patients and doctors. This includes how clinical judgment has been replaced by fear, risk profiling, and enforcement-driven medicine.

The discussion covers:

• How the opioid crisis narrative reshaped pain care

• How CDC prescribing guidelines moved from recommendations to de facto law

• How litigation, settlements, and funding structures reinforced opioid elimination

• How algorithms, risk scores, and liability concerns now override patient care

• And why patient harm has never been measured

The episode also includes a first-person account of being denied pain care in the emergency room despite documented kidney stones, not based on medical findings, but on trauma history and perceived risk.

🎧 Source & Context
This episode is drawn from a live X Space hosted by Dr. Liza Lockwood, featuring patients, physicians, and advocates discussing the realities of pain care under current policy.

Watch full X-Space discussion: https://x.com/DrLizaMD/status/2009384856409506119?s=20

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https://thedoctorpatientforum.com/submit-your-story/

At The Doctor Patient Forum, we preserve patient stories because harm was never measured, and history is being erased in real time.

Why are pain patients treated like criminals, while people on Suboxone are celebrated as brave survivors?This isn’t just stigma, it’s a system. One that quietly rewrote the rules of who deserves compassion... and who gets discarded.In this video, we introduce a lens called Critical Drug Theory, based on Critical Theory, which helps explain how power, identity, and moral narratives shape public policy. It’s a way to understand why people with addiction are often seen as victims in need of care, while stable pain patients are labeled as privileged or problematic, even when both need medication.We break down how these narratives gained power, how they’ve influenced opioid policy, and why the system was rigged to treat pain relief as dangerous, but daily addiction treatment as virtuous.This video gives language to something many patients have felt but couldn’t name. It’s not political, and it’s not a conspiracy. It’s just the truth about how we got here and who got hurt along the way.🎥 Originally released as a Patreon exclusive, now public so more people can see what’s really going on.👇 Join our community & support the work:https://www.patreon.com/thedoctorpatientforum📌 Visit our website:https://www.thedoctorpatientforum.com/📢 Help spread the truth. Like, share, and subscribe.⚖️ Fair Use Disclaimer:This video may contain copyrighted material used for the purposes of education, commentary, and criticism under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. All rights belong to their respective owners.The information contained in this podcast should not be considered medical or legal advice.

Dr. Chad Kollas has spent more than two decades challenging myths and misinformation about opioids in pain care. In this episode, he joins us to break down the FDA’s latest opioid label changes, explain why they matter for patients, and share his perspective as a palliative care physician who has been on the frontlines of this debate since the early 2000s.

We talk about:

• The significance of the FDA's new opioid label

• The ethical failures of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in pain patients

• How propaganda has shaped the narrative around opioids

• What patients and providers need to know moving forward

If you’ve ever wondered how we got here and what hope there is for change you won’t want to miss this conversation.

Dr. Chad Kollas' study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10790545/

🎧 Listen now and share to help us keep exposing the system and supporting the people in it.

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The information in this podcast is not to be considered medical or legal advice