"Pain does not have a moral value. Drugs cannot have a moral value...they're pills. The thing that has a moral value is life. Life is good. Life is a gift. Life should be cherished. Life should be promoted. Life should be supported. That's what we're supposed to do. We should not be moralizing about whether pills are good or bad.
If you are sick and can use a pill to live your life, if taking pills lets you live your life, take care of your children and be a part of your community, then that pill sustains your life and is good.
If someone is a drug addict and they can't deal with their lives, they take a pill to escape their lives; because they can't face the problems they have to deal with. Now, because of that same pill, they are not living; they are abusing the drug...that pill is bad.
The pill is not good or bad, it's how it relates to life."
Dan Brookoff, M.D.
Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology
Memphis, TN