Depriving Patients Of OxyContin Is A Crime

The Hartford Courant ^ | December 26, 2001 | Alen J. Salerian

[Tyrannosaur]

As a psychiatrist, I have treated many desperately ill patients suffering from depression and other psychiatric problems as they struggle to cope with serious and often painful illnesses and injuries such as cancer, AIDS and gunshot wounds.

The drugs used to keep these patients alive and to control their pain are strong medicine - they have to be to work. But unfortunately, the very strength that makes these drugs so helpful to people who need them makes them harmful to people who don't need the medications but take them anyway to get high.

[Lurker]

Where exactly in Article One, Section Eight of the US Constitution is the power to regulate Pharmaceuticals given to the Federal Government?

My copy must be lacking a couple of paragraphs.

Please forward me the revised edition at your earliest convenience.

Thanks in advance,

L

[strela]

You would have made an excellent Russian Commissar.

"Day vare ... veddddy nice! Eveninf vare ... veddddy nice!"

(snicker)

Your ability to twist and distort, in an attempt to use propaganda to confuse the reader is extraordinary.

And your ability to whine and cry like a little baby girl and extrude argumentative ad hominem instead of logic and reason is painfully ordinary on your part.

I think we understand each other perfectly.

[DAnconia55]

Pointing out your actions is not ad hominem. Nor is it whining.

[strela]

Where exactly in Article One, Section Eight of the US Constitution is the power to regulate Pharmaceuticals given to the Federal Government?

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

My copy must be lacking a couple of paragraphs.

You seem to be lacking more than a "couple of paragraphs," but that's just me - YMMV.

Please forward me the revised edition at your earliest convenience.

I like the one we have just fine, thanks. If you think we need another, start a grassroots political movement. You might get only .3 percent of the vote in Presidential elections at first, but be patient.

(Oh wait, you've already done that. Never mind.)

[strela]

Pointing out your actions is not ad hominem. Nor is it whining.

In other words, disagreeing with any of your opinions is being a (fill in the blank: Russian Commissar, Nazi, brownshirt, doodyhead, wife beater, jack-booted thug, member of the Illuminati).

I'll ask again - what 'actions' have I taken that you object to, and why? Be detailed, please.

[Timesink]

Unless the author can cite the statute number and/or law that makes it a "crime" not to make a particular medication universally available to anyone who asks for it, the title of this piece is misleading and ridiculous.

crime [krm ] (plural crimes) noun

1.  illegal act:  an action prohibited by law, or a failure to act as required by law

2.  illegal activity:  activity that involves breaking the law

3.  immoral act:  any act considered morally wrong

4.  undesirable act:  a shameful, unwise, or regrettable act (informal)  It's a crime the way some people mistreat their pets.

As you can see, definitions (3) and (4) show his title is perfectly acceptable, even if you don't think it's an actual legal crime.

However, it IS.

Yes, some people endure pain, and pain sucks. But to pillory the maker of a particular medication in the court of public opinion for cooperating with authorities who are trying to keep the product from being abused by druggies is wrong-headed.

Not too long ago - either early this year or sometime last year - the FDA made it specifically illegal for doctors or hospitals to undertreat, or refuse to treat at all, their patients' pain. The rule wasn't made so much because doctors were underprescribing in order to avoid DEA scrutiny; it's simply that most doctors think very lowly of their patients: that it's "all in their head," that they're exaggerating the true extent of their discomfort, or that they're just trying to get some fun pills. That attitude can now theoretically cost them their license, and their hospital its acceditation, or any number of lesser legal problems.

Patients have an absolute legal right to 100% treatment of their pain, as long as the technology exists to treat it.

[Timesink]

My contempt for any individual or system that withholds analgesics from terminal patients is boundless.

See my post just above. These individuals and systems are now breaking the law if they do such things, though they unfortunately were not back during the time you cite.

If you're in pain, or if you know someone who is in pain, and their physician refuses to give you what you need to make it go away ENTIRELY, report them to their state board. Report the hospital to its acceditation organization (they have a web site just for this). Call the FDA. Raise holy hell, because the law is on your side.

[prambo]

"...painful illnesses and injuries such as cancer, AIDS and gunshot wounds."

The moron ("As a psychiatrist..." - need he say more?) listed his political agenda in his first paragraph. This is a real leap of logic, but a mere step for liberal stupidity.

It's all about agenda and control with these little Nazis.

prambo

[A.J.Armitage]

Here's an exerpt from Federalist #41:

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare".

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.

But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the Articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are "their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms of article eighth are still more identical: "All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,'' etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever.

But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!

That should clear up the "general welfare clause". If not, I have more.

[Lurker]

Gee, I didn't see the word 'drugs' anywhere in the Section you quoted.

Your interpretation of the words 'general welfare' track right along with Hillary Clinton and Teddy Kennedy.

Your parents must be so proud....

L

[Lurker]

Don't confuse the poor muddled girl with facts.

She actually thinks she has the right to vote on what kind of medication you can take for an illness you may have.

She's one of those folks I was wishing a nasty case of bone cancer on. Maybe when she is writhing in agony someone just like her will show up at her house to explain the finer points of Article One, Section Eight and how it gives the Feds the right to restrict her access to medication.

L

[strela]

Gee, I didn't see the word 'drugs' anywhere in the Section you quoted.

Funny, there's no mention of the word 'computer' anywhere in the Constitution either. Nor did firearms with magazines exist when the Constitution was written. Guess that means I can dispatch the JBTs to silence you from posting on FR any more and confiscate any firearm you own that is not 1780-tech, eh?

You (and others) have tried this one before, and it didn't wash then either.

Your interpretation of the words 'general welfare' track right along with Hillary Clinton and Teddy Kennedy.

... and the Supreme Court, the Congress, various and sundry state constitutions and laws, et al.

(Hint: Its a LOT easier to argue something when the law AND the facts are on your side. You should try it some time).

Your parents must be so proud....

Actually, they were. Along with my brothers and sister, I helped support both of them during the last years of their lives; they lived comfortably and happily at home with us.

Of course, the really pathetic aspect of this entire discussion is your apparent assumption that bringing my parents into a political discussion would somehow weaken my position. For that, you are a sad little soul and you have my abject pity.

[strela]

She's one of those folks I was wishing a nasty case of bone cancer on.

There are simply no words that I could add to this that would be adequate. What an incredibly despicable human being you must be.

[strela]

Not too long ago - either early this year or sometime last year - the FDA made it specifically illegal for doctors or hospitals to undertreat, or refuse to treat at all, their patients' pain.

Do you have a statute number for that? I'd be interested in seeing the actual law.

Further, as I stated in various replies earlier in this thread, I sincerely hope that every patient who needs it has their pain treated adequately (and if there is a law to this effect, good for the legislative body that ratified it). My point was that REQUIRING the particular drug company that makes the particular palliative OxyContin to make it freely available to anyone who asks (even if the entity doing the asking is abusing it) is wrong. Last time I checked, I live in a society where no one is forced to produce a product or perform a service against their will; slavery as state policy is not something that Americans do any more.

[muir_redwoods]

No personal slam felt or intended. My beef with many of the complaints about Purdue Pharma, the makers of Oxycontin, is that somehow, a company that makes a superior product when properly used, is responsible when some fool junkie decides to misuse it. The analogy to the firearm industry is inescapable.

A fool who will put an opiate into his arm or up his nose for recreation purposes will always find a drug to abuse whether my wife, and thousands of others, get needed pain relief or not.

[Matchett-PI]

A BTTT from the FR archives!

[harpseal]

Anyone who would deny a person who needs it of relief from the pain associated with some cancers is a sadistic ghoul and deserves to be strung up.

[FITZ]

I finally asked why they did that and they said that in some cases, someone in the family stole the pain-killer

That's the problem with drug abusers. We had a hospital here were a nurse on a post surgical ward was stealing medicines from the patients and giving them fakes so they were in excruciating pain and she was high. Drug addicts will steal anything.