Posts Tagged With: controlled substance

“I will not be intimidated and I will not be silenced,” said Reynolds, who founded PRN… “As I testified before Congress, an obsession with prescription drug abuse has resulted in the gross under-treatment of pain in this country. We have turned honest physicians and desperate patients into criminals, and policymakers and the public need to hear about it…”

Dr. Sharon Johnston comes to this Court having been convicted of a crime that does not exist, by a court without jurisdiction to enter a conviction, and affirmed by a court that did not confirm that it had jurisdiction to do so and – worse yet – blatantly attempted to “bury” its decision through depublication… This entire proceeding has been indelibly painted with the bright and unmistakable color of unconstitutional outcome-driven caprice.

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.

Dr. Schneider’s pretrial motions to dismiss on constitutional grounds, and his motions for abstention have been filed, as has the Government’s opposition to those motions, and Dr. Schneider’s response to the Government’s opposition. As I understand it, now we wait for rulings by the Judge. The relevant briefs, and the Order releasing Dr. Schneider on bond and setting conditions on that release, are linked to, below.

This Resource Is an article by Dr. Frank Fisher published in the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin. He recounts his tale of persecution for practicing excellent pain management – a quintessencial example of the War on Doctors and the Pain Crisis in America.

This Resource Is an article discusses the failure of the ‘barriers to pain care’ literature to analyze those barriers from an ethical POV. The author relates this to ‘the collective failure of the profession to recognize the ethical implications of undertreated pain.’

Testimony of Siobhan Reynolds, President of the Pain Relief Network (PRN), to Senator Biden and the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, March 2008. Concludes:

Blogged analysis by DeLuca about a confused opinion article in Wall Street Journal regarding the relationship between law enforcement imperatives on doctors and the resulting routine undermedication of pain patients. [...]

The invocation of the WHO “analgesic ladder” concept of progressive pharmacological treatment of pain, in state investigations of physicians, is sometimes unfair. On the one hand the guidelines are interpreted as rules… On the other hand, state rules and regulations are often at odds with the spirit and specifics of the WHO guidelines, and of ethical medicine.

Siobhan Reynolds, PRN, on the re-conviction of Dr. Hurwitz on federal drug-trafficking charges: “Each time [a war on docs prosecution comes to trial] the lawyers believe that they will be the ones to try the case correctly [within the context of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA)], and so do not make the Constitutional challenges that need to be made. The CSA reverses the [usual] presumptions [of innocence] and in essence induces physicians to prescribe drugs that are only nominally legal. After they have done the deed, the Department of Justice gets to come in, with all the force and resources …

Excerpt from this blog post about the Dr. Nelson case, Billing MT: “DEA raids doc – seizes patient records – suspends doc’s DEA license forcing abandonment of patients – conducts an ‘inquiry’ that ‘focused on diversion’ that results only in media smear of doc, and loss of livelihood. No Charges 1 year later. No Charges 2 years later, and DEA is off the case, and U.S. Attorney Alme has ‘no comment’. Meanwhile, patients suffered, of course. ‘Innuendo and an investigation’ are all the government needs to close down opioid pain management in entire communities. The Nelson case is a travesty.”

Article by John Tierney of the NYTimes about the retrial of Dr. Hurwitz in federal court which isn’t over yet, but Dr. William E. Hurwitz is already doing much better than he did the first time. Judge L. M. Brinkema has dismissed the most serious charges against him.

No Relief in Sight (full text plus Related References) – by Jacob Sullum, Senior Editor of Reason Magazine, 1997. Source. ‘Brief Note’ added: 2009-07-14. **Brief Note:** A true classic in the annals of the pain crisis in America. This article, as much as any other one thing I can think of, altered my life from practicing physician to practicing pain relief advocate. I am also a big fan of Mr. Sullum’s 2004 book, *Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use*. ..alex… “Torture, despair, agony, and …