Veteran lawyer Ben Stein pleads for restored access to pain drug paregoric

In a personal appeal, Ben Stein recounts enduring intense abdominal pain since the late 1950s, which he previously controlled with the opioid-derived medication paregoric. He credits the drug for enabling him to excel academically—from Parkside Elementary through Yale Law School—and to practice law against high-profile firms such as Arnold & Porter. After relocating to New York and Hollywood, he continued reliance on paregoric, but a policy change about five years ago barred him from obtaining it.

Deprived of the medication, Stein now suffers constant, debilitating pain and describes himself as a test subject of government policy. He directly petitions the FDA, DEA and NIH to restore his prescription, arguing that no evidence shows paregoric is lethal. The piece underscores the human impact of drug-regulation decisions on chronic-pain patients.