Hi,

We are all going to die sooner or later and dieing is often extremely painful especially if you suffer fron cancer. Doctors are not well trained when it comes to pain management and many people die in Hospital in terrible pain.Some Doctors will not administer morphine because it speeds up the dieing process.Would it not make sense to buy morphine and other powerful pain killers so as to manage our own pain.

That sounds good...on the surface.  For me, I think I want to be aware of what's happening when Idie..

Then again, I don't take much now for pain..

Hi Bill,

You can prepare your own medical directives in great detail and carry them on your person if you are tremendously worried about this, and you can instruct your friends and relatives.  

However, I believe hospitals are becoming more enlightened on this issue and are rapidly developing a greater understanding of pain management.  

We are equipped to handle greater suffering than we think we are.  Yes, it can hurt.  Even the physical and mental processes of healing can be very painful.  But suffering does have an end.

love, blink  

Hi Bill-

I suppose you could grow your own poppies, refine the opium and make up a pain reliever, assuming that local officials never caught on. In the 1960's one of the ideas was to use a combination of LSD and opiates so that the mind would be aware at death. Later, it turned out that mescaline was a better cogener for opiates. I thought it was a good idea at the time.

As far as I can see, the underlying problem is that you presume that we all live in a morally competent and rational world. When I look around and discover that we've spent over $300 billion on killing our neighbors, while our schools are still poorer than those in most other advanced techonological nations, then I wonder whether we're ready for that kind of foresight. In the back of my mind I have an image of a dying body being wheeled into court on a gurney ...

dave