Archive for: December 2008

In pain medicine we have the deeply disturbing situation that what most doctors do (medical community norm) is at odds with, and clearly below, the medical standard of care. Literally, in the treatment of chronic pain, an ethical physician attempting to practice in good faith, according to the clinical literature, is an outlier deviating from how most reputable physicians would practice.

Take a moment to scan one or two of these Highly Recommended documents… good background reading for any serious student of the war on docs and the pain crisis. A Critical Assessment of the Impact of Drug Testing Programs on the American Workplace is a good review of this important related drug war topic that is currently in the news (govt push to drug test high school students);
War on Drugs, War on Doctors, and the Pain Crisis in America — this is probably THE CORE document; if you only …

Many physicians are concerned that prescribing opioid analgesics in chronic pain treatment is accompanied by an unacceptable risk of unwarranted prosecution. The validity of this fear is evaluated by examining the standards through which physicians are targeted and prosecuted. Prohibition law is identified as an error in social policy that distorts medical standards.

I am very glad to see physicians, who have themselves been savaged by the government, publishing their stories. Consider Dr. Jackson’s article, Conviction without a Crime, to be a companion piece to Dr. Rottschaefer’s article discussed in the previous item here, The Criminal Criminal Justice System. Together these two articles will give the reader a good sense, I think, of the utter breakdown of professional ethics, common sense, and fairness in any case involving controlled substances.

I came across the article linked to: “Third Circuit Gives New Meaning to Term ‘Criminal Justice System’”, by Dr. Bernard Rottschaefer, himself the victim of federal prosecutor Mary Beth Buchanan in what Radley Balko, who wrote “Sex, Drugs and a Federal Prosecution – The Shabby Case Against Dr. Rottschaefer,” calls “Buchanan’s most outrageous case.” Balko writes: “Since Rottschaefer’s conviction, Buchanan’s case has fallen to pieces, as each of the five witnesses who testified to getting illegal prescriptions from Rottschaefer have since been shown to have lied. Buchanan refuses to reopen the case.”

criticisms and description of federal prosecutorial behavior rings true to me from my experience and knowledge of war on docs/pain crisis cases. Our justice system is withering, ‘the drugs exception to the Bill of Rights’ has gone from being a tragic lawyers joke to business as usual, and we now routinely apply asset forfeiture and RICO laws, intended by Congress to combat drug cartels, to individual pain-treating physicians. Doctors and sick people are easy, profitable prey for law enforcement and federal prosecutors pandering to the electorate through a media willing to be exploited for their share of the spoils.