Was Freddie Gray into street drugs because he was suffering chronic Pain? Pain is a mysterious and yet constant companion when faced with spinal issues. All signals from the brain to the body are through the spinal cord. Failure of the support of bone and cartilage will cause an array of symptoms all over the body that may be arising from the spine.
The spine is difficult to damage unless there is already a pre-existing condition. I have had a lot of experience with spinal issues. Once when my spine was seventy percent compressed, I got a call from the radiologist to not move until he could find my surgeon. He told me that if I even sit wrong that my spine could severe. Another time after an MRI, I was told by my surgeon that I needed immediate surgery because the stenosis (blockage of the nerve canal) in my neck was so bad that all I had to do was bump my head and I would stop breathing. However, when the cartilage and bone are sound, it would take someone extremely skilled in the art of killing to cause death by neck injury. Did Freddie Gray have a pre-existing condition with his spine from a car accident or other yet to be identified issue? There is better than an eighty percent possibility.
I do believe that spinal failure is one of the issues with the use of street drugs in the US. There is over 80% of the population that are deficient in both vitamin D and magnesium. Deficiency in these to vital nutrients causes significant pain because of failure of the spine. Pain does not manifest itself in only physical outcomes. It can affect the emotions significantly as well. After three decades of chronic severe pain, I can tell you there were periods that I would have done almost anything to get out of pain. I suspect that this is also the reason for the abuse of prescription pain meds as well.
When you are deficient in vital nutrients, the cartilage and the bone both soften. Over time the bone will crack and the cartilage will significantly degrade. This causes a series of responses throughout the body that will stump even the best physician. Early in the 20th Century, most back pain was classified as created for the sole purpose of getting pain meds in younger patients. This even happened to me in the 1970s until the doctor had my spine imaged. He then wrote me a letter of apology.
Are we going to blame the failure of our institutions for not properly defining nutrients for health on the police forces on the US? Health and social policy failure being blame on the people on the frontline is totally immoral. – Pandemic Survivor