Really?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is a lot of misinformation out in the pain community. I hear it in phone calls, emails, and see it on social media posts. Last week I was speaking to a woman who helped start a new fb group. She wanted me and International Pain Foundation to help support their upcoming survey after telling me it was just like the one the iPain and Pain News Network did together a few months back, but different. She asked if she could cite our results in the meantime to help get a legislative bill blocked. She said much more. I let her know as long as she cites our survey she could use our results. She went on to tell me that opioids had been made illegal in multiple states for everyone except palliative care patients. Knowing that this was not true, I asked which states. She named Virginia and New York as two of the examples. There is no such law that makes opioids illegal for all but palliative care patients in any state. I record most of my phone calls and when this one was done, I couldn’t believe what I had heard her say so I went back and listened again and again. Where does this misinformation come from? Its not helping.