A difference of scale

I'm sitting here watching Mutant X and, during the commercial break, I see the following:

A commercial against taking drugs/getting high that depicts a teenage girl who hits an older man while she's high. Immediately following the end of that commercial, there was a commercial for painkillers.

This may not seem like much to anyone, but I'm of the belief that our country's ongoing need to run away from anything unpleasant is what, ultimately, leads people to drug use beyond those we consider 'safe'. I also think that most people rely even on 'safe' drugs too heavily. We often experience pain for a reason and using pain-killing drugs lets us ignore pain - thus ignoring its source for much longer than is healthy.

I'm not talking about pain from major trauma or injury, I'm talking about more minor pain that can signify things like stress, overwork, emotional distress, and so on. When we deaden the pain so we can ignore it, we ignore the warning signs our body is sending us and it goes to even more drastic lengths, and more serious illnesses, to get our attention.

Overall, I think our casual acceptance of drug use to deaden pain is part of what supports the idea that drugs offer solutions. In the end, our health is at stake and the drugs we take to keep the pain at bay differ largely only in how much of the pain they numb and how they do it.