White people who visit hospital emergency departments with pain are 26% more likely than Black people to be given opioid pain medications such as morphine. This was a key finding from our recent study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. We also found that Black patients were 25% more likely than white patients to be given only non-opioid painkillers such as ibuprofen, which are typically available over the counter.
There is nothing wrong with giving somebody a week’s worth of narcotics to help them recover from surgery. It takes more than a week to become addicted.
For certain people, a single self administered dose is all it takes. That’s not the point though.
I absolutely said that narcotics for acute surgical pain are ok.
However, if you got a whole week of narcotics for outpatient surgery, your physician is part of the problem.