Posts Tagged With: diversion

Maybe we all deserve the pain. If we are too stupid to understand that aspirin kills way more people than morphine, and that there are a whole lot worse things for you and your damn Federal prosecutors to worry about than if maybe your neighbor is getting too much pain relief (sheesh!) – if you are that effin stupid then maybe you deserve the chronic pain which YOUR government has already imposed on you and your children as the defacto law of the land.

I spoke to Billy’s wife briefly, recently, and am very happy to be able to report that Dr. Hurwitz is no longer in federal prison. He is currently in a half-way house in D.C. and will be transitioning to house arrest as part of his parole and probation requirements… He is in a sort of “titration to house arrest” best I understand it. Meaning, he is starting to get overnight visits with his family – YEA! – and more and more of that till he sort of “stabilizes” on a regimen of maintenance house arrest. (Is house arrest a substitution therapy for …

Update on the case of USA v Dr. Martinez in Washington state. Martinez has been acquitted of all drug crime charges. The fraud charges remaining after her 2007 fed trial have also been dismissed, but the govt can bring the fraud charges anew. Also examined is a recent Yakima Herald article announcing “new” charges that are not, in any reality-based sense, “new” at all.

The article well describes the public health chaos this is the predictable consequence of clinical and public health authorities abandoning their real mission to uphold the medical standard of care for their citizenry, and instead focusing exclusively on the policeman’s agenda which prioritizes ‘catching a few addicts’ over providing adequate pain management for legions of innocent patients.

Excerpt: “As usual, the academics ignore the elephant in the living room. Regarding review articles that wring their hands about the lack of long term evidence of the safety and efficacy of opioid analgesic therapy, they never discuss the impossibility of measuring the efficacy and safety of a therapy that almost no physician is comfortable doing properly. For an excellent analysis of what we might call the “new academic opiophobia,” see the Pain Relief Network’s 2008 “WA State Tort Claim” pages 34 – 37.”

Press release from the Competitive Enterprise Institute regarding their Politics of Pain initiative, and video interviews with combat vet chronic pain patient James Fernandez, and with Dr. Alex DeLuca of the Pain Relief Network. CEI Calls for End to DEA Harassment of Pain Doctors.

This Resource Is a peer-reviewed analysis of Gonzalez v Oregon. “If the U.S. Attorney General had won this case, DOJ, through the DEA, would have been given the authority to make decisions about the legality of prescriptions in all situations, not just end-of-life care.” After analyzing the Supreme Court decision, Brushwood reviews DEA identification of physicians and pharmacists despite information obtained from a Freedom of Information Act by Joranson documenting DOJ knowledge of massive theft and loss of controlled substances having nothing to do with the doctor – patient relationship. He also reviews the DEA FAQ debacle, the “Myth of …

In this full text medical journal article, Joranson, in response to Paulozzi (below), describes a basic public health approach to the ‘drug abuse crisis.’ One wonders whether the combined brain power of the NIH, CDC and FDA would not have accomplished this, except for the imperatives of the drug war. Hurwitz 2005 (see below) is an example of the sort of creative analysis we should expect, but never get, from our academic and federal patriarchs.

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. [...]

Archive with links to testimony, supplemental documents, video interviews, and radio interviews related to House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime hearings on “DEA’s Regulation of Medicine” in July, 2007.

“This final meeting determines Richard\’s fate, either they allow him to come home to his family after 3 1/2 years in prison, or he will have to serve his mandatory 25 year sentence.” – Linda Paey (Richard\’s Wife)

This is it, tomorrow is the day, and I am at once elated and anxious. Tomorrow, the petition for clemency for 48 year old Richard Paey, a wheelchair-bound Florida man with failed back syndrome and Multiple Sclerosis, and a morphine pump in his spine courtesy of the State of Florida Dept. of Corrections, will be heard.

This Resource Is the index or table of contents page for a collection entitled: THE PATHOLOGICAL DEA, which consists of several articles from the January issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Pain Medicine, by physicians, researchers and advocates most of whom worked with the DEA to produce the now infamous Amazing Vanishing DEA FAQ. The articles provide a glimpse into the feelings of personal hurt and professional betrayal experienced by these clinicians and academics of good will when the DEA abruptly disavowed the FAQ and wratcheded up attacks on pain doctors. Truly Fascinating articles by Heit, Fishman, Passik, and Rowe – …

Associated press article from their “World of Pain” mixed media package. Touches on the chilling effect, persecuted physicians, pain crisis in America, and the war on doctors.

Blog post about a Continuing Medical Education (CME) course based solely on one interesting and flawed article about the prevalence of addiction in primary care chronic pain patients treated with chronic opioid therapy.

Blog post about: Aberrant Drug-Related Behaviors (ADRBs), which are commonly referred to in slang vernacular as ‘red flags.’ Excerpt: “In summary, in opioid-treated chronic pain populations, ADRBs are very common, addiction as a consequence of treatment is very uncommon, undertreatment of chronic pain is very common, and pain experts lack uniformity in interpreting the relative importance and significance of various ADRBs.”

Blog post about the conviction of Dr. William Mangino for violations of the state drug act and medicaid fraud. Link to full text of Mangino’s Omnibus Motion which pertains to request for summary Not Guilty and discussion of Jury Instructions. This document is discussed. Mangino Verdict III will concern bail and defense fund matters.

Blog post about the Prescription Drug Diversion Prosecutions – Quick Reference Card 2002 for which a link to full text PDF is provided. Tina Rosenberg, in her recent cover story for the New York Times Magazine, makes direct reference to the Cheat Sheet in the following paragraphs excerpted from that article. It really is fascinating in a stomach-turning sort of way. Enjoy!

Thanks to Alex Coolman of the most excellent Drug Law Blog for snagging yet another AG Tom Corbett war on doctors case that had slipped by me. I think this makes three unrelated doc scalps for Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett in a neat seven days. Wow. Impressive.

Blog post about the indictment of Dr. Jennifer Zampogna, and the initial media smear mounted by Attorney General Tom Corbett of Erie county, PA. One would have thought we\’d seen how low Attorney General Tom Corbett could go, in the Dr. Paul Heberle case, but apparently not. This Zampogna case is embarrassing – a pathetic joke. Here is the MAIN charge, the best they got… After that, the charges get too silly to bother with here. He\’s kidding, right? The good people of PA are going to pony up for a hideously expensive criminal investigation and trial to convict a …