THE CASE FOR MORPHINE

IF NOTHING IS BETTER FOR PAIN THAN NARCOTICS, WHY DON'T MORE DOCTORS PRESCRIBE THEM?

Doug Ventura will never forget that fall day in 1981. He and two other police officers from Montgomery County, Maryland, were trying to arrest a man strung out on angel dust when the suspect started kicking Ventura in the side and face, again and again and again. It took four operations for doctors to repair Ventura's fractured spine. But the pain never really went away. It was as if someone had forgotten to turn off a switch somewhere deep inside his body.

The only painkiller strong enough to relieve his suffering was morphine, a narcotic that is, like heroin, derived from...

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