Pain Doctors targeted by federal gov't

[Joanne98]

This diary is my reply to the diary Ft Lauderdale's Oxycontin Express by Keith930. He presents reports that people are flocking to Florida from other states to buy Oxycontin & other pain pills. The diary presents the people doing this as junkies, but as I and other posters to the comments on the diary point out, they could also be pain suffers who are looking for relief denied to them by their own doctors because of a campaign against 'excessive' pain pill prescriptions by the DEA & US Attorneys.

Friendlystranger's diary :: :: This policy started in 1984 during the Reagan Administrations War on Drugs.

In 1984 Congress handed the DENS Office of Diversion Control discretionary power to revoke a doctor's registration to prescribe medicine. (In order to write prescriptions, doctors must be registered with the DEA.) The 1984 legislation enabled the government to yank this registration if a doctor commits "such acts as would render his registration . . . inconsistent with the public interest." This phrase, buried in the fine print of the Dangerous Drug Diversion Control Act, significantly expanded the ODC's latitude. Before 1984, the agency could revoke a doctor's registration for only three reasons: If he had falsified a prescription, was convicted of a felony relating to controlled substances or had his state medical license revoked, denied or suspended.

With the passage of the act, the rules changed overnight-from black-and-white to gray. Enforcers could pronounce guilt and revoke a registration simply by declaring that the public interest had been threatened. Suddenly, prescribing that was determined to be against the "public interest" was being used as prima facie evidence of diversion. The government had effectively criminalized narcotic pain treatment and had begun to practice medicine.

Since its creation in 1973, the ODC has had a dual function. It was charged with ensuring the availability of pharmaceutical drugs for legitimate needs and preventing their diversion for illegitimate sale and use. But the 1984 drug bill changed everything. Despite limited data on the origins or amount of diversion, the agency targeted doctors and patients, performing search and-seizure operations in the offices of baffled clinicians. The peremptory justice was supported by Orwellian logic:

Patients at pain clinics use narcotics.

Narcotics can be addictive.

Therefore, pain patients are addicts.

This new system encouraged doctors to suspect the motives of their patients. "As doctors, we believe in people, but the government expects each of us to be an FBI unit. We're supposed to trust no one," explains Dr. Frank McNiel, a family practitioner in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Overwhelmingly, the 1984 provision led agents to focus on Schedule 11. The painkillers here, including morphine and Dilaudid, have a high street value. Looking for a way to combat diversion, agents relied on the all-purpose "public interest" dictum. They used it as a preventive tool, to bust law-abiding doctors prescribing medication that might be diverted down the road. On both the state and federal levels, the distinction between enforcement and prevention collapsed, as did the distinction between criminal behavior and the treatment of pain. Once Schedule II drugs were involved, the DEA decided to shoot first and ask questions later.

The scrutiny has led doctors to ration pain medicine and ignore pain -- necessary restraint in a world of diversion, enforcers would have us believe. "Even if you treat a patient with a terminal malignancy, it's irresponsible to write a prescription for 500 Dilaudid tablets," says Dr. James Winn, executive vice president of the Federation of State Medical Boards. "If the patient dies three days later, in a legitimate family the rest should be flushed down the commode. But sometimes a family member picks them up. We have a major drug problem in this country, and a lot of it comes from doctors."

Deadly Morals

Since 1984, numerous doctors who specialized in pain treatment have been investigated, tried, and convicted. Patients who use pain medications themselves have also been prosecuted. One case was that of Richard Paey

In 1985, Richard Paey was involved in an automobile accident. A subsequent botched operation left him in nearly constant pain. Like many chronic pain patients, he developed a tolerance to the opioid painkillers he was using to alleviate his suffering. Detectives began their investigation of him in 1996. Due to the quantities of pills he was buying, it was believed he was trafficking the drugs. However, a three month investigation turned up no evidence of intent to sell, and the quantities he bought are not unusual for long-time users of opioid painkillers. Nonetheless, Florida law allows prosecution for trafficking based solely on the amount of drug the suspect possesses. Paey was arrested in March 1997.
On April 16, 2004, he was sentenced to a 25 year mandatory minimum prison sentence and a $500,000 fine.
Paey served three and a half years at the Tomoka Correctional facility in Daytona Beach, Florida. During this time, the state provided a direct IV pump of morphine directly into his back to alleviate his pain. The strength of the morphine drip prescribed to him was stronger than the "morphine equivalent" of the amount of oxycodone that he was arrested for using in the first place.<2>
After succeeding Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Charlie Crist granted Paey a waiver of the requirement that a minimum period of the sentence be served on his clemency petition, permitting his petition to be heard by the clemency board immediately.<3> The board recommended denying clemency for Paey. Nevertheless, in a sudden and unexpected move, Governor Crist and the Cabinet unanimously granted Paey a full pardon on the morning of September 20, 2007. Paey was freed from prison at 2:51 pm. <4>

Patients, doctors, civil libertarians, and anti-drug war activists have fought back by presenting the other side to the story of 'doctors giving pill heads prescriptions for profit.' Siobhan Reynolds, who saw her husband suffer from untreated pain & then die, founded the Pain Relief Network. She has become a spokeswoman for opposing the DEA & DOJ's attack on pain doctors, which has lead to this:

When Siobhan Reynolds thinks a doctor has been unfairly targeted for such a prosecution, she tries to counter the official narrative by highlighting the patients he has helped and dramatizing the conflict between drug control and pain control. But now the government has turned its reinterpretive powers on Reynolds, portraying the pain treatment activist's advocacy as obstruction of justice and thereby threatening the freedom of anyone who dares to suggest there is more than one side to a criminal case.

In December 2007, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wichita unveiled a 34-count indictment against Haysville, Kansas, physician Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, a nurse who worked in his clinic. It charged Schneider with "illegally distributing prescription drugs to his patients, directly causing the deaths of at least four of them."

Convinced the Schneiders were innocent, Reynolds and her group, the Pain Relief Network (PRN), publicly disputed the charges. In January 2008, PRN announced a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of using the federal Controlled Substances Act to regulate the practice of medicine, traditionally a state function. PRN also tried to stop the state medical board from suspending Schneider's license, arguing that doing so would harm his patients.

The Tanya in question, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway, evidently was annoyed by the unusually balanced press coverage Reynolds helped arrange. In April 2008, Treadway took the extraordinary step of seeking a court order prohibiting Reynolds, who was neither a defendant nor a lawyer in the Schneiders' case, from talking about it. The prosecutor claimed Reynolds had "a sycophantic or parasitic relationship with the defendants," whom she was using "to further her own personal interests."

Nine months after a federal judge rejected Treadway's attempt to gag Reynolds, the activist learned she was the subject of a grand jury investigation into possible obstruction of justice. Reynolds and PRN received subpoenas demanding their communications with dozens of people, including relatives of the Schneiders and members of their defense team. Tellingly, the material sought includes correspondence related to a PRN-commissioned billboard in Wichita proclaiming "Dr. Schneider never killed anyone."

Folks, please write to the Dept. of Justice & ask Eric Holder to question US Attorney Treadway about what she is doing. Write to President Obama & to Congress to tell them we have to stop targeting pain doctors. The patient you help may be you.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/18/794579/-Pain-Doctors-targeted-by-federal-govt

This kind of shit really pisses me off!

[annabanana]

1. Pain?. . This is what the government expects you to do. .

SUCK IT UP!. . WUSS!

[undergroundpanther]

3. Wish I could

make them suck it up and when they are writhing in ghastly pain from a virus eating away the mylin sheathes coming out of the spinal nerves I'll be sure to lecture them on how WEAK they are and tell them to shut up and take a tylenol. Because anyone who uses pain meds MUST be a filthy loser addict!(sarcasm on the filty loser addict thing)

[undergroundpanther]

2. Off to Greatest

As a kid I had chicken pox and my mom was infected with shingles .I have Post herpatic perephrial Neuropathy. And osteophites and disc issues due to a cab that didn't have thier lights on and me having no advocate.The cab was going 45 mph.
I flew.And I was sent to the local ER and was released the same night.
Fast forward 12 years, my back is a mess. Sometimes the neuropathy is in remission and it just aches. But when the neuropathy decides to hurt it is so painful all I can do is take a painkiller.If I had to suffer through the terrible pain until the neuropathy decided to quit tormenting me I would very likely try to kill myself ,Why? Because the pain is THAT bad.Last time it happened, my roomate had to get my pain meds for me because I was writhing crying and could barely talk on the phone to the pharmacist and there is no way in hell I couldve got there myself. Once I had meds it took a bit of time to kick in but it was mercy,and I fell asleep. I woke up later,pain meds still in effect and could go to the bathroom,yes it was still hurting through the meds but I could function.
After the flare up was over I was fine, it was back to a low level constant ache.

If I can't get pain meds due to addicts and idiot teenagers stealing them from thier grandparents I am going to be very,very angry. And if my pain becomes too much and I cannot get any help in the anguish of the moment as severe pain can really warp your outloook on life,I just might die and then what.I am sure the DEA and thier ilk are not going to think of the consequences and shed any tears over my situation.Because to they that write laws I am invisible.


"However fiercely opposed one may be to the present order, an old respect for the idea of order itself often prevents people from distinguishing between order and those who stand for order, and leads them in practice to respect individuals under the pretext of respecting order itself."

"It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior."
Antonin Artaud

[cutlassmama]

4. pain meds are a quality of life issue for people suffering

[nashville_brook]

5. chronic pain person since 2003 -- the "prohibition" splashes back on normal doctor care

b/c i have chronic pain, i've had a regular doc tell me she wanted nothing to do with me regardless of what i was going to her for. said she "doesn't treat pain" and that she'd rather I found someone else to see. and, she was just my regular physician (she took over when my physician left the practice).

point being, the environment is one of suspicion and fear, and patients are suffering even when they aren't seeing the doc for pain issues. we're redlined. there's no other word for it.

[cayanne]

6. I live with chronic pain every day of my life

I suffer from arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic myofascial pain and chronic fatigue. On top of that I have a kidney disease (Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis) so, I can't use anti inflammatory medication. There are millions of people in pain like I am and we all need help.

[CountAllVotes]

7. been living in chronic pain since 1984

and it is due to a variety of ailments, one of them is a progressive disease that is rapidly worsening at this point in my hopefully short life.

As of recent, I'm have problems getting the pain medications I need to make my life semi-livable and I wondered why. Perhaps this explains why. It is a disgrace to allow people to suffer needlessly, especially when they are using pain medications with caution as I have been doing since 1984 when I suffered a complete tear of the rotator cuff which went undiagnosed until 1990 when it was too late to have it fixed (not a "fresh" tear I was told by several different orthopedic surgeons and too much mobility).

This is one of my more livable symptoms however. The other problems I have are awful, just awful. I'll be glad when I'm gone quite frankly as I am so tired of this! I wake up in pain and I go to bed in pain and I wake up during the night in pain.

Do these doctors and rule makers ever consider cases like this? It seems not as of recent.

God this makes me sick. How much more despicable can it all get? :shrug:

I am fully insured btw as if it matters one damn bit!

:dem: :kick: & recommend.

[nilram]

8. k&r.

[Aragorn]

9. I second this

I just retired from medicine. I followed all the state rules and I also treat addictions - and had done so for many (25+) years without problems. Then, I
1) testified against a friend of the medical board president (at no charge - he HAD killed patient)then 2) confronted a cop over racist comments. He prosecuted black patients but, it turns out, was also DEA liasion, then
3) turned in a person who was forging prescriptions, with written evidence of same, to this same cop.

That patient informed me her brother works for DEA and I would be the one getting in trouble, not her.

Sure enough, false complaints started coming in left and right. After a second trip to the state board, 4 days before my license was due to expire anyway, they would not even look at any evidence. They had already presented false testimony the first time and therefore it was dismissed.

The second time they would not even look at evidence and instead wanted NO restrictions on my license BUT wanted me to agree that what I was doing was wrong. The only thing they said was wrong was "not enough documentation" - which is what they refused to look at. Of course my documentation is all proper, and has been sent over the years to other physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. In fact I have been told it is "the best" many times.

So I did not renew my license. I am not willing to play this game.

This BTW is why so many doctors will not prescribe pain medications at all. It cannot be justified but I cannot fight a crooked system.

I believe my willingness to treat uninsured patients for Medicaid rates did not help as many colleagues complained how it makes them "look bad". There would have been little support from them, although these are the same docs who sent their pain patients to me so they wouldn't take these risks.

[Trucker Bob]

10. Canada vs USA

I have lived with an inoperable brain tumor (pituitary) for
the past 7 years. As opposed to your experiences, my doctor
insists on my staying on a long-term pain management program.

At present I take 2 oxycodone 4 times daily.

Because I am a senior on low income (gov't pensions) my total
cost is ZERO!! That also applies to any and all CT scans,
blood tests etc.

[ThomCat]

11. Chronic Pain patient since 2000.

This attitude that anyone taking something that might cause addiction must be an addict, and the fear that prevents most doctors from daring to proscribe painkillers is hurting a huge number of people.

I am one of the very few people I know in serious pain who gets adequate pain treatment. Most doctors refuse to even consider pain a real symptom because they have no way to treat it. How ridiculous is that, while we have assholes out there screaming that we have the best health care on earth?

Until doctors are free to treat pain as a real symptom, we don't have real health care.