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Posted on 06/20/2007 5:40:59 PM PDT by neverdem
Ronald McIver is a prisoner in a medium-security federal compound in Butner, N.C. He is 63 years old, of medium height and overweight, with a white Santa Claus beard, white hair and a calm, direct and intelligent manner. He is serving 30 years for drug trafficking, and so will likely live there the rest of his life. McIver (pronounced mi-KEE-ver) has not been convicted of drug trafficking in the classic sense. He is a doctor who for years treated patients suffering from chronic pain. At the Pain Therapy Center, his small storefront office not far from Main Street in Greenwood, S.C., he cracked backs, gave trigger-point injections and put patients through physical therapy. He administered ultrasound and gravity-inversion therapy and devised exercise regimens. And he wrote prescriptions for high doses of opioid drugs like OxyContin.
McIver was a particularly aggressive pain doctor. Pain can be measured only by how patients say they feel: on a scale from 0 to 10, a report of 0 signifies the absence of pain; 10 is unbearable pain. Many pain doctors will try to reduce a patient’s pain to the level of 5. McIver tried for a 2. He prescribed more, and sooner, than most doctors.
Some of his patients sold their pills. Some abused them. One man, Larry Shealy, died with high doses of opioids that McIver had prescribed him in his bloodstream. In April 2005, McIver was convicted in federal court of one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and eight counts of distribution. (He was also acquitted of six counts of distribution.) The jury also found that Shealy was killed by the drugs McIver prescribed. McIver is serving concurrent sentences of 20 years for distribution and 30 years for dispensing drugs that resulted in Shealy’s death. His appeals to the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Having said that, I absolutely hate drug seekers. They will totally remove any joy you will have in being a doctor. Nothing pisses me off more than being lied to by some lowlife who wants you to give him his "supply" that he then sells to his POS druggie pals.
If a patient qualifies for hospice care, they should get whatever legal drugs make them comfortable. I'm not aware that the patients in this doctor's care were dying -- other than those he killed.
"it seems to me the last thing the doctor should be worried about is whether or not the patient is going to get addicted to the meds."
His patients were abusing the drugs and selling them. That is something to worry about.
“Chronic Pain Center and Garage Door Company”
Oxycontin is a timed released medicine when swallowed whole. You can bypass that by chewing or crushing it to release it all at once.
Purdue Pharmaceuticals is working on a formulation that cancels the effect of the drug if crushed.
Somewhere someone is always worrying that others are 'abusing' themselves. -
"- The utterly insufferable arrogance of power, and the need for it, is an absolute fact of the human condition. -- Nothing can be done about it. -
Just as the poor shall always be with us, so shall we have these infinitely shrewd imbeciles who live to lay down their version of 'the law' to others."
Hang in there, buddy!
Do they know the source of your friend’s pain?
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
You can also do poppy seed extractions for opiates, but you need a little more expertise for that.
These are all from legally obtained sources. NOTE: the preparation of these items is EXTREMELY illegal and will land you in jail if you are caught.
I haven't done any of this kind of stuff in 30 years, but it is amazing to see what I thought was "secret" info for a clandestine number of acid cooks is now available to anyone who can find google.
“Now, in my Dad’s case, the doctor’s do have to worry about respiratory failure, because of the large tumor in his lung and his emphysema.”
Why? When you say advanced lung cancer, I assume we’re talking terminal? If the pain medication necessary to keep a terminal patient comfortable also happens to hasten their death, is that such a bad thing?
I am speaking from experience here. My Father died aged 54 from terminal kidney cancer that had metastasized. I don’t think the cancer is what directly killed him, however. His appetite had been minimal for some time and he was on fairly large doses of Dilaudid for pain. In pill form at first, but at the end he was on a pain medication pump with a liquid form. In the end he died from the combined effects of calorie starvation, and depressed respiration from the pain drugs. Keeping him alive, but in pain, for longer wouldn’t have been any benefit to him or anyone else.
Chalk up many pain patients who can’t get the medicine they need as more casualties of the War on Some Drugs.
Meanwhile, the desire for intoxication seems to be innate, as it’s found in every society in history — you have to fight this from the demand side. If they keep attacking this from the supply side, the Constitution will continue to be attacked, people with legitimate needs will be denied, and people, including kids, who just want to get high will find what they need or try substances (paint thinner, etc.) that will kill them faster than many of the outlawed drugs.
Just wait until we get socialized govt. run medical care forced down our throats.
Take two asprin and call me in the morning will no longer be a cliche! It’ll be the treatment you get when you come in with a broken arm, unless you’re an undocumented pre-citizen!
Not getting enough cash from seizing cars and cash from black and hispanic kids on the street anymore with the focus on profiling and they only get so much from the black market narcotics trade they enforce so they’ve branched off and started siezing the money and assets of Physicians. It’s all about the cash and keeping the agency busy. If what they say is true, more or as many are acing themselves out from legal narcotics as illegal meth and coke, well then there you go. What the hell good does regulation do? It keeps the federal government rich, in your business and steadily growing, but it doesn’t give you one bit of security for the liberty you’ve traded.
Why should a doctor be held responsible for patients who illegally re-sell painkillers on the street, or take them all at once and OD? Doctors aren’t mind readers, or narcotics agents for that matter. This seems like another example of the death of personal responsibility.
Me either; he will be 93 when he gets out.
Rant, Hell! That’s the most concisely clear explanation for what really happens in these cases than anything else I’ve read.
The source of her pain is several fold..
1)Being hit by a dump truck
2)Fibromyalgia
3)Spinal stenosis.
(I can spell dump truck, the others are questionable)
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