A San Diego pain management expert says the opioid crisis is resulting in another crisis of patients whose lives literally depend on the drugs.

Dr. Bill McCarberg founded the chronic pain management program with Kaiser Permanente in San Diego and is an Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor at U-C San Diego.

He tells KOGO News doctors are afraid to prescribe opioids due to overdoses, and people who have been on opioids for years are even committing suicide over the pain because they can't get prescriptions.

there was a groundswell of support for aids patients, but not here, because the belief is opioids are bad or don't work, when he says they save lives by giving people the ability to cope with chronic pain.

He says studies have never been done to determine the effectiveness of long term opioid use for patients with chronic pain.

He also likens the crisis to Aids in the 80'. He says there was a groundswell of support for aids patients, but there is no groundswell of advocacy for chronic pain patients.

Listen to our interview below.

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