Observation Project
SOWK 660
Ashley Basham
Concord University

Literature Review
History
Over 60 years ago, a surgeon by the name of Warren Cole wrote that it must be appreciated that ongoing pain has the ability to destroy the discipline of the strongest individual, but doctors should not prescribe large quantities of narcotic pain relievers as drug addiction itself has the potential to become a “hideous spectacle” (Meldrum, 2002.) For years, many doctors were trained to give only the minimal amounts of opioids for pain, unless death would soon follow. During these times, chronic pain was widely undertreated due to the presumed emotional significance of opioids that has the large potential to interfere with logical use.
Most notably, in the mid 1980’s Kathleen Foley and Russel Portenoy started what would be a twenty-year campaign for the long-term use of opioids to treat chronic pain (Meldrum, 2016.) Foley and Portenoy suggested that there was not enough long-term data to show any evidence of addiction rates. Big pharmaceutical companies such as Perdue backed this campaign one hundred percent. Many researchers and specialists in the field challenged the idea of opioids being safe, noting instances of addictive behavior, the potential dangers of overdose, as well as cognitive damage. The ongoing debate was just that until the early 2000’s when Perdue began mass marketing of Oxycontin, stating it was safe due to the fact it was released within the body over a 12-hour time frame. It did not take long for recreational users to learn that they could get the full effect by crushing the pills or dissolving them.