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| Doctors vs. Drug Warriors |
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Posted by FoM on June 19, 2001 at 07:00:44 PT By Joel Miller Source: WorldNetDaily 
One egregious and less-than-publicized side of the drug war is its interference with doctors and their ailing patients, especially those suffering from chronic pain. WND's "Babe in the Bunker," Barbara Simpson, wrote yesterday about a lawsuit aimed at one Dr. Wing Chin, an internist sued by the family of cancer patient William Bergman for not adequately treating his pain. Bergman is now dead, but the family scored a purse of $1.5 million in general damages. The only reason punitive damages weren't heaped atop the judgment, presumably, is that the doctor did not act with any malice. He was only doing his job – even if inadequately. In an age of HMO-baiting and health-care calumny, it's easy for a jury to blame doctors or the system for their callous disregard for the welfare of patients – easy, but not necessarily accurate. As much as doctors may want to help patients, they are constricted and constrained by narcotics laws. "The most effective analgesic drugs are opiates," writes psychiatrist and addiction specialist Thomas Szasz, listing morphine, heroin, dilaudid, codeine and methadone. The trouble is, as Szasz points out, "Opiates are the most strictly controlled of our controlled substances." In order to prescribe opiates, which are classed as Schedule 2 drugs (except heroin, which classed as Schedule 1 and cannot be prescribed for any medical purpose), doctors are subject to monitoring by narcotics officials. "The Drug Enforcement Administration," sarcastically says Szasz, "watches doctors prescribing opiates like customs agents watch dark-complected travelers at Kennedy Airport." Fearing negative sanctions from drug officials, such as jail or revocation of their licenses, doctors prescribe powerful analgesics less and less. The result? In the words of Dr. Russell Portnoy of the Pain Center at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital, "The undertreatment of pain in hospitals is absolutely medieval." The fear and idiocy that churns under the surface of this issue is best seen in the recent flap about OxyContin, a synthetic opiate which debuted in 1995 with the promise of effective pain relief for chronic sufferers. Like any psychoactive substance, of course, some people are bound to experiment with its less-than-medicinal qualities, which in our present political environment is completely inexcusable and requisite of swift action to nip its use in the bud – which, while apropos, is not intended as a pun for medical-marijuana activists. Fueled by abuse and scare stories, like that in a January 2001 issue of Time magazine, media and law enforcement are bucking for recognition as the latest incarnations of Eliot Ness. After publicly announcing a crackdown, DEA is now setting its sights on "over-prescribing" physicians. As with any painkiller, of course, dosing is relative to the pain, and since nerve-endings tend to reside in the bodies of patients, not DEA rulebooks, the definition of over-prescribing is more than subjective. As Sandeep Kaushik recounts for a June 4 AlterNet article, "One doctor in southern Virginia recently reported that 30 minutes after a visit from a Purdue sales representative [the company which manufactures OxyContin], local DEA agents descended on his office to question him about what the rep had told him and whether he intended to prescribe the drug to any of his patients." Szasz says the necessary result of such politicking and busybody police work from drug cops is the undermining of the doctor-patient relationship, sharply criticizing any doctor who would "be seduced by economic and political enticements into abandoning his role as healer and betraying his ethical obligation to the patient (Primum non nocere! First of all, do no harm!), and assuming instead the role of referee – arbitrating the conflict between the patient who wants a powerful analgesic and the state that wants to withhold it from him." As a healer, the doctor's role in many cases is to mitigate and reduce pain. The drug laws prevent this by outright prohibition (heroin cannot be used, despite its successful use in terminal cancer cases), overarching regulation (limiting the use and amount of certain painkillers) or in-your-face intimidation (prosecuting doctors who violate some fungible and subjective standard of over-prescription – or threatening to do so). "Among the remedies which it has pleased the Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings," said Dr. Thomas Sydenham in 1680, "no is so universal and so efficacious as opium." Drug warriors apparently know better than God – and doctors. E-mail: jmiller@worldnetdaily.com Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web) CannabisNews Articles - Joel Miller Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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Comment #13 posted by lookinside on June 20, 2001 at 14:23:26 PT:
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| i tried to bring up that guidelines pamphlet mentioned in the letter..got error 404...not for public consumption? [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #12 posted by kaptinemo on June 20, 2001 at 14:09:20 PT:
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| I've cared for a cancer patient undergoing chemo. I witnessed my own mother's terrible suffering, who died screaming and whimpering in agony. I've seen bald-headed, cancer-riddled kids crying in their beds, festooned with IV's, actually, fervently wishing to die rather than suffer another day with under-treated pain. And the DEA has the unmitigated gall to lecture doctors as to the limits of their humanity in treating pain? (Please look at this letter from a DEA bureaucrat to a real M.D.: Someone who's probably never, ever cared for someone suffering horribly, a bureaucratic layman, stoops to lecture a doctor on pain management. This in a nutshell defines the insanity of the DrugWar. People suffering needlessly for what amounts to a kind of religious dogma) I once got in a discussion with some buddies of mine as to what punishment should be meted out to child molestors. I informed them that at dawn, said creep should be frog-marched at bayonet point to the nearest rapelling tower. Most of those are thirty feet high or more. A ten foot piece of piano wire should be tied around the part of their bodies which have caused so much heartache, with the other end attached to the tower. They would then be forcibly pitched off the tower. They'd know precisely what true agony was just before they became 'street pizza'. Cruel? Uh-huh. Barbarous? You betcha. Bloody-minded? Yup, that's me (putting hand up). But so is making a person suffer for want of analgesia because some arsenloche in a suit and tie sitting in an office in Washington DC is afraid someone terminally ill and/or suffering horrible chronic pain might become addicted. I don't know about you, but no one asked me to sign anything stating that I turned over the welfare of my physical, mental, and spiritual being to another's disposition. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #11 posted by lookinside on June 19, 2001 at 20:03:59 PT:
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| an idea whose time has come...it's better to get someone "hooked" on morphine or heroin while they are recovering from some extremely painful trauma or disease than to let them suffer...less pain equals faster healing...once someone is healed, treatment of the addiction can be addressed... as for terminal patients, DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #10 posted by mayan on June 19, 2001 at 16:43:09 PT |
| The dim-wit suits tell doctors what drugs they can & can't prescribe. They tell the farmers what crops they can & can't raise. Was it Franklin or Jefferson who said something to the effect, "Should we wait for direction from Washington(D.C)when to reap & when to sow, we should surely soon want bread." It's up to us to put these heavy-handed,overbearing,power-mad fascists in their places. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #9 posted by dddd on June 19, 2001 at 13:47:54 PT |
| Yea Lehder,,,that manager guy probably thought you were an undercover cop,and he shit his pants when you brought up drugs,,,he thought you were on to his greenhouse,or the 14 kilos of Bolivian flake in the store room....d.d.d.d [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #8 posted by Lehder on June 19, 2001 at 13:12:35 PT |
| thank you Cuzn for your encouragement of my bad attitude. it's too many people for too long being afraid to display an attitude that's gotten us into this mess. i think that MORE THAN HALF the people in this country are either users of illegal drugs or else are accepting of family members or close associates who use illegal drugs. and it's about goddamn time that this timid majority, afraid of offending, afraid of not seeming nice and instead going to prison and watching their friends and family go to prison - about time we all really start getting in people's faces and letting them know who we are and where we stand. thanks again, Cuzn. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by Cuzn Buzz on June 19, 2001 at 11:58:19 PT |
| I'm proud to see you "takin it to the street" Lehder! Too many of us keep our mouths shut when we should be screaming to wake the dead! When we all stand up to be counted even we will be surprised by how strong our numbers are! WE ARE WINNING! [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #6 posted by Steven Tuck on June 19, 2001 at 10:59:23 PT:
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| FoM, I am a chronic pain patient myself and this war against pain docs scares me more than anything else the DEA are doing. I also watched my grandfather die in agony in the 80's because his MD wouldn't give him anthing stronger than tylenol #4, which left him screaming in pain. MD siad he didn't want him hooked? With less than 2 weeks to live from cancer? I made up my mind to not die screaming. If they only had to watch the suffering they cause. Skip Baker has a killer group for chronic pain at www.widowmaker.com and all should check this movement as well, for if we are denied lifesaving opiates for pain then cannabis is out of the question. I am tired of healthy people telling me I should just suffer and dopeheads are more important than me a disabled Vet. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by Lehder on June 19, 2001 at 10:46:55 PT |
| Just like the doctors who are afraid to go against the warnings of the DEA, just like the politicians who stick to the common wisdom, and the folks like us who dare not show their faces because we know that there is no respect or tolerance from the people who claim to be the masters of righteousness. last week i was in the grocery store and i wheeled a cart full of stuff to the manager's cubicle and i asked him where his business stood with respect to imprisoning marijuana smokers. when i got no satisfactory reply, i let him keep the groceries. i hope the ice cream melted all over his drug-free floor. i frequently make my business conditional on the vendor's politics, and i have to be careful not to run out of places to buy food and eat etc! but i like being confrontational. i feel better for it. and i think it helps. some people say that my behavior is inappropriate and uncalled for. i think that attitude is the whole problem. more people should be political activists. last month i ran into some old neighbors i had not seen in 30 years. they asked me what i was doing lately and even though i knew them to be nice conservative people i told them that i was a political activist, that marijuana should be legal, that the war on drugs should be ended and that its prosecutors should be put into their own prisons - that's what i'm doing. and you? well, that really put the damper on their friendly overtures, but i thought i ought to let them know that we're at war. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by Sudaca on June 19, 2001 at 09:02:03 PT |
| Why does a half of one country feel entitled to dictate to the other half for their own good? Doctors have no trust fromn the government, government is trusted by no one. The only reason this has become an issue is because the people of 1930 needed a way to keep a failing bureaucracy empowered. Elliot Ness had just lost his cause and they needed a new one. Its gone too far and now the monster is too big and there isn't a way to call the genie back into the bottle. In history undoing the damage of putting government in charge of morality has never been easy. Even when it is obvious that it is wrong , FEAR keeps the opressor in power, FEAR because people who think they are doing God's work stop at nothing and have no conscience. Just like the doctors who are afraid to go against the warnings of the DEA, just like the politicians who stick to the common wisdom, and the folks like us who dare not show their faces because we know that there is no respect or tolerance from the people who claim to be the masters of righteousness. the only relief I see is that its getting harder and harder to ignore that your neighbor, your son, your mother or aunt may be using drugs. And its hard to hate people you know, when they're close to you and not a figure in the streets. Soon enough it'll be a case against the family doctor who saved his wife and children and then Mr. Senator will lose the image of the failed druggie quack doctor that sells OxyContin to kids to pay his morphine habit. Hopefully it won't be too late. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by FoM on June 19, 2001 at 08:20:02 PT |
| This is my story. The day before my son died we were running out of liquid morphine ( They didn't use an IV ) because of all the drug hassles. My son was acting like he was having terrible pain and he couldn't tell us. We asked the hospice nurse for more morphine and she said this will be hard because my son was so close to death and a whole bottle which wasn't much was a major problem. I didn't say anything but I was so angry that I could see red but kept my mouth shut. I swore that I would do my best to not let this happen to more families. It's wrong. It is immoral. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Cuzn Buzz on June 19, 2001 at 08:05:31 PT |
| I know what, why don't people who are denied medical marijuana sue DEA? It makes much more sense than sueing the doctor who in all likelyhood has done everything he knows to do to help. I think an avalanch of lawsuits against DEA and other "drug warriors", including "outspoken" pro-drug war antis should have the desired effect. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on June 19, 2001 at 07:51:55 PT:
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| If you had gone to 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school and 5 years of residency before starting practice, you might take offense when some bureaucrat with minimal pertinent education tells you how long your patient can be hospitalized, or what drugs they can or cannot receive. That is reality in Amerikan Medicine. We must ask the question as to whether this is the best approach? Would we not prefer personal decisions about medicine choices made between doctor and patient on a mutual basis? Do you trust government to do what is right and in your best interest? I sure do not, and do not recommend blind obedience to the state to anyone. The best government is one that will listen, and get out of the way when that is the wisest policy. [ Post Comment ] |
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