Posted on 12/05/2003 7:20:49 AM PST by ags1824
DRUG WAR HURTING LEGITIMATE PAIN SUFFERERS
November 20, 2003 The Kentucky Post By Ronald Fraser
The very same federal agency that has repeatedly failed to slow the flow of illegal cocaine from abroad -- with help from its state partners -is now waging an alarmingly successful war against legal prescription drugs here at home. Problem is, the Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts to keep legal drugs off the black market has a nasty side effect. Terrified of DEA and its state counterparts, many hometown physicians no longer give 15 million Americans struggling with chronic pain the medicines they need.
In 2002, according to Dr. Joel Hochman, director of the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain, the DEA investigated 622 physicians, brought charges against 586, and in 426 cases medical licenses were revoked "for cause." He warns, "If the DEA continues as at present, there won't be any doctors writing opioid prescriptions in two more years." Opioids, like OxyContin, are highly effective painkillers made from either opium or synthetics with the properties of opiate narcotics.
Last September, Kentucky officials charged Louisville-area physician Wrenda Gallien with eight counts of illegally prescribing OxyContin. State and federal agents justify their actions as a response to DEA reports that: "The abuse of pharmaceuticals is a significant problem in Kentucky. In eastern areas of the state the abuse of OxyContin has reached alarming levels. In Louisville in February 2000, undercover agents purchased more than 8,100 morphine, Dilaudid, and methadone tablets sold by an Ohio pharmacy employee."
Kentucky, in 2000, was ranked sixth in the nation for the number of OxyContin prescriptions written, per capita."
It is true that some pain patients do sell their pills on the black market. Others sometimes overdose by mixing prescription medicines with other drugs and die as a result. And perhaps some profiteering physicians knowingly take part in these illegal schemes.
But most doctors under attack, says Hochman, are not deliberately abusing their professional responsibilities. They simply need better pain control training and office management skills. His solution is for DEA, state agencies and state medical boards to work with, rather than against, the nation's 5,000 doctors practicing chronic opioid therapy.
"To be a competent physician," says Hochman, "every doctor in the United States needs to be adequately trained -- and most are not -- in the management of intractable pain. Law enforcement and physicians must work together to separate the sheep from the wolves and to identify and prosecute the small number of prescription abusers. Targeting the physician only drives legitimate pain patients into deeper despair, terminal hopelessness and into the black market for relief -- as in the case of Rush Limbaugh."
This heavy-handed approach is a three-part recipe for disaster.
I can think of better examples than oxy for golfers back. What's next, weed for tennis elbow.
There is a problem with pain therapy in this nation, but there's a lot better poster boys than Rushbo.
I've been to several countries where almost all pharmaceuticals are sold over the counter, including the drugs of such pressing concern to the feds.
Funny, the locals are not lining up to buy them, there seems to be little concern about an addicted population, and indeed the locals don't perceive this as an issue warranting their concern.
Oxycontin is not an opioid.
It is a sustained release delivery system that contians an opioid. Big difference but since when has the WODdie Reefer Madness bunch ever needed to be accurate about anything.
Under treatment of pain has been a problem for a long time. These witch hunting totalitarian Church Ladies will set back pain treatment even more so.
Stay healthy.
I do have an arthritic back, with bad knees and ankles, to go along with hands that are ate up with the stuff. Maybe a good doctor and/or maid could get me back on the golf course.
Well, of course they could!
But that wouldn't slake the thirst of the power-hungry and the greedy.
BTW, my arthritic hands were cleared up 20 years ago by bee-stings incurred accidentily in the course of keeping a couple of hives. Seriously!
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