[FORTRUTHONLY]

This is the result of some unscrupulous doctors and pharmacy owners jeopardizing people's health. Because of such actions followed by DEA investigations many physicians are hesitant in writing scripts for narcotics and instead they send the patients in true need to pain management physicians. Once the DEA flags a physician, that MD is pretty much toast. Every single controlled prescription s/he will ever write will be scrutinized, checked and double checked. This is not a convenient way to practice medicine at all.

On the other hand the addicts will do whatever it takes to get a hold of the narcs: stealing RX pads, calling fake scripts over the phone (CIII-V) or altering scripts. One pharmacist friend of mine told me the story of one of his colleagues actually leaving the state because of threats. The man called the police and DEA upon receiving a script which he deemed as a fake (and it was) and the addict found out where he lived (easy to find out from the state's own website, on the professional licensing database) and sent his posses to threaten his family. He was so terrified he quit his job, sold his house and moved in a different state.

[zerosix]

Personal observation:

A young man (at that time)that I had gone to high school with, having an excellent reputation and National Honor Society (when it really counted) student, was drafted into the military during the Viet Nam War.

I was unaware of his status but he was frightfully injured and spent months in various hospitals being treated for wounds that would leave him not only with a partial disability but also chronic pain to boot.

I learned later that he had been sucessfully weaned off pain killers before being released from his hospitalization and honorably discharged. Unfortunately, his pain never ceased and thus sought further medical treatment.

The end of my story is the tale his mom told me after I read in our local newspaper, that he had been shot and killed by a pharmacist (whom I also knew) after he attacked him attempting to get drugs without a prescription.

His mom said that after returning home to live with her, that he was never without pain. She said one of the new doctors he was seeing at the local VA would give him some drugs for a short time, then he'd return for an exam, see another doctor who felt he "no longer needed medication" and that went on for over 2 years.

Finally out of desperation, she said that he returned to the local pharmacy asking for some of the drug he had been given just months before and the rest of the story was him attacking the druggist and being shot and killed.

Being currently treated at a local pain clinic myself for treatment for nerve damage, I can understand one's desperation - not his actions but his desperation.