Growing Pain

Misuse OF PAINKILLERS is on the rise, even though most of us don’t really know HOW THEY WORK. With tighter regulations in place and a global crisis on our doorstep, is it time we PUT DOWN THE PILLS?

- Laura Collins

Here’s a familiar scenario: it’s 3pm on a Thursday. You’ve barely left your desk all day, and you’ll probably sit staring at your computer screen until 8 o’clock tonight. If you don’t already have a headache, you know there’s one coming, so you do the sensible thing and down two painkillers from your top-drawer stash. Sure, some fresh air or a massage could help. Likewise, stretching out in a dark room. But in situations where your body is threatening to slow you down, whether it’s that creeping headache, period pain or just sore muscles post-boxing class, we grab the easy, sometimes only option and just get on with it. Like the ad says, when pain is gone, life takes its place.

Resorting to quick pharmaceutical fixes isn’t a new trend, but there’s growing evidence to suggest that your pre-emptive Thursday afternoon paracetamol is indicative of a wider problem. There’s an opioid crisis in the US right now; dubbed this generation’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, the number of opioid-related deaths is so great it’s actually lowered the national life expectancy, according to a study recently published in the Journal Of The American Medical Association. Though America’s crisis is the headline grabber, misuse of opioids (drugs that act on the nervous system to relieve pain) is a global concern. According to the 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, Australia’s most commonly misused pharmaceuticals are painkillers and opioids, with three in four recent users admitting to misuse of over-the-counter (OTC) codeine products.