Re: drug use by our homeless family members or friends?, lets adopt them

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 07:51:58 -0500, Brother Nate
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>Government delineates what substances are legal to use as
>medicines.  Doctors prescribe them.  This really isn't
>that hard to figure out, nor is it inherently unreasonable.

Nate, I've been curious as to your reaction to recent accounts of the
DEA raiding the offices of physicians who specialize in the treatment
of chronic pain. One such, Cecil Knox, was just acquitted of most
charges, the jury hung on some others. Whatever happens to Dr Knox in
court, his practice has got to be deader than the Dodo bird. 

There are others, Hurwitz, Westmoreland, Woodward

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17428  or

http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/197/docsinthedock.shtml

Some of these MDs are undoubtedly pill-pushers, but others are clearly
not. You know how easy it is to obtain a conviction in federal court
these days. Any doc who wins an acquittal certainly deserves it.

But that's not the problem. The problem is that rather than
investigate by knocking on the door and examining records, the DEA
serves warrants on these practices by bursting in, pointing weapons at
patients, forcing them against the floor, handcuffing them ... in
short scaring the shit out of them. 

Outcomes are thus irrelevant. Your practice is destroyed. And your
colleagues are certainly going to take note. How can they not?

I recall you stating here that you enjoy a good relationship with your
MD. S/he prescribes pain meds for you knowing you won't abuse them.
That's fine. But what about the next Nate Engle? Someone your doctor
doesn't know, yet? Why should s/he take the chance? Even if he's later
acquitted by a jury, the DEA's method of investigating will destroy
his practice, his reputation, put his patients and staff at risk. 

So why chance it?

You're in pain? That's too bad. Your doctor believes you, but why
should s/he risk his practice to treat  it? How many MDs are
disciplined, arrested, terrorized for *not* writing a pain med
prescription?

Already in some offices MDs are posting signs warning patients not to
ask for certain pain meds. It becomes safer and easier not to treat. 

Meanwhile those few who have the gumption to practice medicine the way
they were taught are going to suffer adverse selection:  ie, people
with real chronic pain, *and* junkies, are going to flock to them
because they're willing to write prescriptions. As they do so, their
utilization increases and catches the DEA's attention, thus they
become targets and their bravery earns them at the very minimum a
needlessly brutal search.

I don't know about you, but I can't think of a single instance where
law enforcement has entered a physician's office and been met with
violent resistance. The DEA raids the MDs thus because they *can*, not
because they have the slightest legitimate fear for their safety.

You may have perfect faith in the DEA, and you may believe (or not)
that they wouldn't burst into an MD's practice without lots of very
strong evidence, but so what? Does your doctor also have such perfect
faith? S/he can't possibly know whether all  of these targeted doctors
are really pill-pushers. So these raids have to have a chilling effect
on a MD's willingness to treat pain appropriately. Not all sources of
pain are easily documented. Treating them requires judgement,
experience and a certain degree of faith in one's patients.

This is similar to the Goose Creek raid in that it's actually been
going on for some time now. Police raided a high school in I believe
PA last year, even closing down the roads before they burst in with
SWAT tactics and weapons. So far as I know, no pictures were
available, so the raid didn't draw the kind of attention the NC one
did. 

Same for MD's offices. They're been doing this for some time now, but
the publicity has increased. But no one has the guts or political will
to reign them in. They're allowed to serve warrants anyway they
choose, because the issue at hand is drugs. Pure and simple.

You know, Nate, studies pretty consistently show that people when it
comes to the possibility of catastrophic illness people don't fear
death so much as they do pain and disfigurement. What the DEA is doing
right now affects the whole fabric of our national life. Pain control
was already a delicate issue, but  the DEA is exacerbating it.

You've accused me of wanting to dismantle the Controlled Substances
Act, when I've advocated no such thing. I don't believe morphine, or
ritalin or  valium should be sold over the counter. But the way the
DEA is enforcing the CSA right now is a cure far far worse than the
disease it was designed to fight.

Andy Katz
____________________________________
I sentence you to kiss my ass!

                    The Simpsons


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