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> Why should doctors and others be able to prevent people from treating their pain?

Opioids are not an effective treatment for most people with long term pain. They develop a tolerance for the opioids, and so they end up with an addiction, taking very large quantities of opioids, and still being in pain.

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What are the problems with just increasing the dosage over time. This sounds to me like a very reasonable approach to someone with intractable pain.

Opioids relieve pain. They also suppress your breathing.

The pain system in your body gets used to the opioids faster than the breathing system. Over time, the difference between the amount of opioids you need to help the pain and the amount of opioids that make you stop breathing gets smaller and smaller. This has a very predictable bad end result.

Toxicity. As your opioid dose increases so does your risk of side effects such as respiratory depression and arrest.

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