A sanction means that benefits are stopped, thus denying claimants the means of survival, a sentence no court in the land would ever dish out and yet benefit claimants are subject to such sanctions without trial or representation…
Is suffering from constant pain considered torture? Is it considered torture to deny pain patients the options for treatments that work? Is the DEA torturing pain patients by closing clinics and restricting the supply of certain drugs? Do insurance companies torture patients by refusing to cover or limiting certain medications? Does the healthcare system torture people who can’t afford it and/or go bankrupt because of it?
Do the state and federal governments torture their citizens when they refuse to legalize medical cannabis? Is being put in jail for marijuana considered torture? Is having cancer but not having access to cannabis considered torture?
Is it considered torture to put those who suffer from addiction in jail?
Is the drug war a torture program?
All Things Chronic 
RE: Is suffering from constant pain considered torture? Is it considered torture to deny pain patients the options for treatments that work?
It has always been my contention that when a patient is suffering serious pain in front of a doctor who refuses to treat it effectively by prescribing the appropriate pain medication (and opiates are the drugs most appropriate and effective for pain), this is not much different from causing the pain by torture.
If you watch someone being burned alive and don’t try to put out the fire, isn’t that equivalent to torture? Whatever starts the suffering, if you have the means to help and don’t, you become an agent of the suffering.
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Not all doctors have the means any more — most, if not all, are just puppets of the DEA, State Medical Boards, and insurance companies. Doctors are no longer the boss, and the options they have are restricted by understandable fear, ignorance, and as always, the money. It looks like science has little to do with the medical industry and our health care any more.
Besides, didn’t you know, pain patients are responsible for their own suffering? They torture themselves? Because… I dunno, we love pain, or something stupid like that.
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