Civil Liberties Implications of Our Nation’s Approach to ‘Drug Control’

Civil Liberties Implications of Our Nation’s Approach to ‘Drug Control’; by Siobhan Reynolds, Pain Relief Network; Comment #11 to John Tierney’s Dr. Hurwitz’ Mysterious Motive; TierneyLab; 2007-04-25.

April 26, 2007

If I might, I would like to focus our attention from Hurwitz to the larger civil liberties implications of our nation’s approach to ‘drug control’.

There are so many who need opioid pain medications and can not get them. The most reliable research on this subject, the Roadblocks to Relief Study, the findings of which are representative of all people suffering moderate-to-severe, non-cancer pain in the U.S., found that 9 percent of adult Americans so suffer, and that for almost half of these the pain is “out of control.” The majority of people with the most severe pain describe it as “out of control” and their lives are hellish and very restricted; almost unimaginable to those who have not been there.

These people have their lives destroyed every day as they drag themselves from doctor to doctor being lied to, verbally and sometimes physically abused, forced into unnecessary rounds of expensive testing, prescribed drugs that will not work for their pain and which are genuinely dangerous, but which the doctors insist they take so that the doctor can protect his career and freedom by charting early and often orders for various non-opioid therapies; just in case the policeman might find to cause take a look some day.

They are sneered at by pharmacists, called addicts by doctors, drug tested, called “frequent-flyers” and other derogatory names by emergency room nurses and doctors, denied reimbursement because the insurance company suspects “inappropriate use” of these “addictive drugs,” fired from jobs, taken to court by ex-spouses and deprived of the custody of their children because they are “drug addicts” refused extra medication after surgery, so if they chose surgery they either have to sneak the medicine into the hospital (and run out early that month - another “red flag”, another “aberrant drug-related behavior“), or forgo the surgery altogether. I could go on and on.

Shocking? Think about the following.

The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) proclaims that the sale, possession, and transfer of these medically vital drugs is illegal, except as authorized by the United States Attorney General. That means that if you have pain, or anxiety, or anything which requires you to take substances they define as “controlled”, you are guilty of a crime - unless the Department of Justice or a judge decides that you aren’t, after your prosecution.

Think about that when you decide to challenge a law enforcement officer or run for office. Think about that when you find that your state has put an electronic prescription drug monitoring program in place to protect us from “doctor shoppers.” And remember what the Nixon burglars wanted when they broke into Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. They wanted sensitive medical information. They wanted leverage.

The CSA, therefore, destroys the presumption of innocence at the very heart and soul of our liberty, and puts the practice of medicine at the mercy of a huge law enforcement apparatus controlled entirely by the Executive branch. Everyone is a potential target of a politically motivated prosecution, because all of us are just one car crash or bad surgery or cancer diagnosis away from being a despised person, hunted by the State.

The law also makes it possible for prison officers to withhold “that junk” in order to force people in pain to plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. Or, perhaps, to testify against their doctors.
People in pain are routinely required by judges to ‘admit their addiction’ and to go off the medications before they will be allowed out of “drug treatment.”
Our government does not keep statistics on the numbers of people who commit suicide as a result of untreated pain. According to them, this simply does not occur. According to them, pain doesn’t kill, “narcotics” kill.

I am merely giving you a hint of the brutality going on out there in the name of “drug control.”

We did not break from England merely to build a new monarchy, with government having ultimate power over our lives, such that we were put in a position to beg for compassion and a zone of privacy from our “leaders.” Quite to the contrary, we took the sovereignty of the king and vested it in each individual. The reason for this remarkable transfer of power was the brand new idea that all of us are created equal in God’s eyes and shall therefore be equal before the law; a powerful and novel notion which has yet to be realized by any country on this earth, least of all ours.

I have watched and participated in many trials of physicians, and our organization, the Pain Relief Network (PRN) is bringing Dr. Ronald McIver’s case before the United States Supreme Court. [see: Why We Continue to Fight for Dr. McIver; Flannery; 2007]

The fact that Hurwitz’s jury is taking this long can only mean that despite all of what has been written here (and I assure you there is so much more that severely undermined the prosecution’s credibility) at least one, and maybe more of the jurors have decided that Hurwitz is guilty and that he has not proven himself innocent. I hope that those who know he is actually innocent hold their ground. [They didn't. ..alex...]

What a disturbing state of affairs.

Unfortunately, so many powerful interests such as pharmaceutical companies and the law enforcement apparatus, which includes the lawyers and most of the judges, and the addiction industry make so much money on the enslavement of the millions of people in pain, that political change is virtually impossible. PRN went to Congress numerous times and implored members to take this deplorable situation seriously but we were never able to get any movement whatsoever. Every vested interest is profiting mightily from the status quo, and most of all our so called public servants.

The only way to change this is to challenge the law on civil liberties grounds. This is what African-Americans were forced to do when they reclaimed the promise made them by the U.S. Constitution, and this is what we shall have to do as well. We hope, of course that until this is possible, we can somehow get justice for individual victims of this madness such as Paey, Hurwitz, McIver, Rottschaefer, Maynard, and so many others.

Until we are free of this tyranny, many more innocent and valuable lives will be destroyed.

– Siobhan

Siobhan Reynolds, President, Pain Relief Network;

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