Posted on 09/15/2004 3:42:44 PM PDT by kaserkes
Association of American Physicians & Surgeons The Voice for Private Physicians Since 1943 1601 N. Tucson Blvd Suite 9 Tucson AZ 85716 www.aapsonline.org
TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO CONTACT CONGRESS: “THE POLITICS OF PAIN & PAINKILLERS” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Help stop the war on pain patients & doctors. • Contact Congress by Thurs., Sept. 16. • Forward this message to everyone on your email list. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We now have an easy, one-step way for everyone to contact their Members of Congress to tell them you want them to attend the briefing "The Politics of Pain & Painkillers" to be held on Friday, Sept. 17, courtesy of the Health Action Center run by “Citizens for Health.”
All you need to do is click through to this website: http://www.healthactioncenter.com/action/index.asp?step=2&item=21298
Enter your name and address, and a letter will automatically be sent to your Member of Congress, with your signature. It takes about one minute.
I hope everyone will take the time to do this. EVERY LETTER MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
Association of American Physicians & Surgeons 1601 Tucson Blvd. Suite 9 Tucson, AZ 85716 (800) 635-1196 (520) 325-4230 Fax www.aapsonline.org
----------------------------------- • Wheelchair-bound Richard Paey, an MS & chronic pain patient serves 25 years for attempts to get painkillers.
• Dr. James Graves is serving 63 years for manslaughter in the deaths of four patients, at least of one of whom mixed painkillers with illegal “recreational” drugs.
• Dr. William Hurwitz faces trial next month on more than 60 charges usually reserved for drug kingpins.
• A Redding, CA couple makes costly treks to Oregon to track down a pain specialist after theirs is prosecuted.
• Dr. Benjamin Moore of Myrtle Beach commits suicide on the eve of his sentencing.
• Dr. Jeri Hassman of Tucson is indicted on more than 100 counts after she refuses to rat out a patient.
These are not isolated cases. Almost 50 million people in the U.S. suffer from chronic pain, and for many, opioid painkillers provide the only relief. More than 400 doctors were prosecuted for prescribing painkillers in 2002.
The DEA and the DOJ have launched Draconian enforcement initiatives, leaving them to decide who is “deserving” or “undeserving” of pain relief. Doctors are being threatened, impoverished, delicensed, and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of relieving pain. The “War on Drugs’’ has come to mean a war on LEGAL drugs – and against the doctors who prescribe them, and the patients who need them.
Prosecutors make careers out of high-publicity cases involving the hot “drug du jour” such as OxyContin. But this war is causing enormous collateral damage and deaths from “friendly fire.” Physicians have been drummed out of practice, sent to jail, and even been driven to suicide in the face of these 21st century witch hunts. Patients are threatened by prosecutors if they refuse to testify against doctors. They’re left in debilitating pain, some driven to suicide rather than face the pain.
If this continues, not one doctor will be willing to prescribe the drugs that patients so desperately need.
The DEA wants $140 million the next budget to "root out doctors like the Taliban" while they let the real terrorists go free and the Coast Guard has to beg to get funded for $8 million to protect all of our shores!
Thanks for the info. I will follow thru.
Bump
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The people have the "retained" right to ingest the chemical of their choice for any reason and in any quantity they see fit.
a citizen's personal pain relief, even more so. Government has not business, no constitutional authorization to the contrary.
Well, there's the statement. Now, is the author saying none of them were guilty of overprescribing? Or prescribing improperly? Or of outright criminal activity?
Or is the author saying some were? Most? Is 400 somehow too many?
I mean, what's the point here? Release them? Let the doctors police themselves?
Stupid, goofy, feel-good article. Save the whales!
What is being said is that if doctors have to fear the DEA looking over their shoulder and second guessing their prescribing decisions under fear of prison, they will not prescribe pain killers in adequate doses. That means that patients suffer.
So YES, better that a few doctors over prescribe so long as no one suffers interminable pain. Patients have killed themselves because they could not stand the pain any longer when the technology is available to relieve them. You want a definition of evil, there it is: Making patients suffer to make a silly political point.
You bet! And I looked real careful in Amendment IX, and found these too!
If the person becomes ill on the chemical of their choice, they have a right to free (taxpayer financed) health care. Paramedics, ambulance, intensive care, surgery, whatever. No matter how much it costs!
If they lose their job because they are constantly ingesting the chemical of their choice, they have the right to free (taxpayer financed) unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, housing, etc.
And if they can't afford the chemical of their choice, the have the right to free (taxpayer financed) medicine.
Wow! What a great amendment! Nothing in there about personal responsibility, morality, character, self-esteem, sacrifice ... just a whole bunch of rights to free (taxpayer financed) stuff.
What a country!
Oh, wait! One other thing. If they are addicted to the chemical of their choice and want to quit ... guess what? Yep, they have a right to free (taxpayer financed) drug rehabilitation.
I'll tell you what they have the right to. 5 years of free (taxpayer financed) prison, that's what.
Ping!
Those 400 doctors were prosecuted for more than keeping patients out of pain. There is no way a legitimate doctor cannot justify his prescriptions to a prosecutor or to a jury of his peers.
If this were a real problem, there'd be a heck of a lot more than 400 prosecutions.
Thanks for the ping...are you staying dry in the great northwest?
NO YOU DIDN'T. The welfare state is not in the constitution anywhere. That is the creation of crooked politicians that use the crisis of the moment to build up a police state.
How the heck does the illegal welfare state justify taking away people's real rights because it might cause some additional expense for welfare? End the welfare state and give me back my freedom. I will then be happy to take care of myself. It will be a lot easier without all those taxes that pay for the welfare.
One thing a conservative should never do is take the welfare state as a settled state of affairs. You must fight it and when you see it being used as you just tried to use it, to justify oppression, that should make you all the angrier.
The point here is that it is cruel and evil to make people suffer because doctors have to worry about being second guessed and risk jail. I guess that you have never had any long term pain. If it happens to you, you will see and feel the evil yourself. Then you will understand the point of the article.
In order to prosecute an illegal, unconstitutional War on Drugs, we make the sick suffer. That is much worse than crazy.
The prosecutors count on everyone to have your attitude...that they wouldn't be prosecuting the docs unless they were guilty.
It's easy pick on doctors instead of drug traffickers and counterfeiters -- criminals know how to circumvent the law.
Here;s an example - a 20-something pain patient was being treated with opioids, then goes out and shoots up heroin at a party, drinks alcohol and od's. So the doctor is prosecuted and convicted of manslaugher. so now he's supposed to be psychic or trail the patient around 24/7?
Then I would expect more than 400, is my point. More like 4000.
"a 20-something pain patient was being treated with opioids,"
Fine. If the dosage was within acceptable medical practices, what's the problem?
Perhaps you're referring to Dr. Deonarine who prescribed OxyContin to Michael Labzda, 21, in high doses without medical justification? Turns out those charges were dismissed because the "judge determined that Labzda caused his own death by drinking rum, beer, snorting the OxyContin and taking the Xanax ..."
Give me a specific case, then we'll talk about it. Your generalized gossip means nothing.
theres a simple way to put a stop to this just have one local da with enough balls to indict and proscute john asscroft and any dea members who do this with practicing medicine without a lisence and go for the max sentence you can get
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