cannabisnews.com: Bush Expands War on Drugs





Bush Expands War on Drugs
Posted by CN Staff on March 01, 2004 at 22:14:12 PT
By Marc Kaufman 
Source: Quad-City Times 
Washington — The Bush administration unveiled an expanded crackdown Monday on what it called the growing new menace of prescription drug abuse, which it said now touches and harms more than 6 million Americans yearly.Top administration officials said the initiative, the first comprehensive one of its kind, would increase state monitoring programs that detect suspicious prescriptions and patients suspected of doctor shopping. It would also increase education to doctors about how to detect potential abusers of prescription drugs.
It will also take on the burgeoning use of the Internet to purchased controlled drugs. Karen Tandy, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a press conference that there are thousands of Web sites that regularly offer narcotic medications, often without a prescription or a doctor visit. She said it has been very difficult to move against them because they shut down as soon as they are identified, and then reopen under a different name.“The non-medical use of prescription drugs has become an increasingly widespread and serious problem in this country,” said John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. “The federal government is embarking on a comprehensive effort to ensure that potentially addictive medications are dispensed and used safety and effectively.”Walters said that under President Bush’s proposed 2005 budget, funds to attack the illicit use of prescription drugs would increase by $20 million, to $138 million. Most of the money would be directed at reducing the abuse of opium and morphine-based painkillers, which are among the most widely prescribed medications in the nation.The issue of how painkillers such as OxyContin, Lortab and Vicodin are prescribed and used has become an increasingly contentious one, and some pain doctors and law enforcement officials have come into sharp conflict over how widely and readily they should be available.The Drug Enforcement Administration and Justice Department have become more aggressive in targeting and prosecuting doctors and pharmacists who they say are improperly prescribing and distributing prescription narcotics, and a dozen health practitioners have been charged in recent years for their prescribing practices and several are in prison. But pain doctors and some advocates for patients with chronic pain say the government is overzealous and has created a “chilling effect” that keeps many doctors from prescribing painkillers that patients need. They argue that the morepressing problem regarding painkillers is that so many patients in pain are not getting them.“Doctors who prescribe opioids for pain are becoming increasingly intimidated by the government’s targeting of legitimate medicine,” said Siobhan Reynolds, an advocate with the Pain Relief Network. “We implore our elected representatives to put the needs of ill Americans ahead of the reckless demands of misguided and self-serving government bureaucracies.”In describing why the administration is making the diversion of prescription drugs a priority, officials presented statistics which they said showed that while illicit drug use is declining overall, the abuse of prescription drugs has increased.According to a 2003 University of Michigan study, for instance, the painkiller Vicodin ranked second only to marijuana in terms of illicit drugs used by 12th graders. Other federal statistics estimated that 6.2 million Americans misused prescription drugs in 2002, compared with 2 million who used illegal cocaine and 700,000 who used Ecstasy.A new study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University identified 495 Web sites advertising controlled prescription drugs during a one-week analysis. Of those, 157 were sites that sold opioid-based drugs such as OxyContin, Percocet and Darvon. Only 6 percent of the sites selling drugs, the study found, required a prescription to complete the sale, and none of the sites placed any restrictions on the sale of drugs to children.In an effort to more aggressively combat the Web sites, the DEA said it would use more Web crawler and data mining technology to identify, and then prosecute, the businessmen behind the Web sites. Walters said that the administration also planned to pressure both credit card companies and mail delivery services to deal more seriously with the illicit sale of these prescription narcotics, stimulants and depressants. Source: Quad-City Times (IA)Author: Marc Kaufman Published: Monday, March 1st, 2004 Copyright: 2004 Quad-City TimesContact: opinions qctimes.comWebsite: http://www.qctimes.com/Related Articles: Anti-Drug Strategy To Include Pain Killers http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18419.shtmlBush Touts Testing and Faith-Based Treatmenthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18410.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by OverwhelmSam on March 02, 2004 at 13:47:04 PT:
Careful What You Wish For
A backlash is already developing across society. Marijuana laws bring forth such dire legal trouble, that people are departing from the use of marijuana and ordering dangerous prescription drugs over the internet. People are overdosing and dying from prescription drugs in steadily increasing numbers while marijuana use is showing a slight decline. Now, the DEA is cracking down on prescription drug abuse by going after doctors and internet retailers, but it's too late. In their zeal to over legislate and enforce a limit to marijuana use, the problem has become a nightmare of dangerous anti-depressant and opiate based drug use. Dumb asses.
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Comment #8 posted by ekim on March 02, 2004 at 10:14:36 PT
one wonders how many have called Rush to thank him
Greenspan is talking of reducing the SS cks. Because of debtHere in MI the lawmakers just passed a law that goes back in time to Oct 03 for those that got tickets for not having there car insurance now to 300$ The Schools here in MI have been cut by hundreds of Millions. Total programs have been cut by 1.5 billion since Gov.Gramholm has been in office. Now comes the Fed Gov't unleasing this new program and what does it mean when jpee says he will pressure, does that mean he wants every card holders name and every mail delivery address. In an effort to more aggressively combat the Web sites, the DEA said it would use more Web crawler and data mining technology to identify, and then prosecute, the businessmen behind the Web sites. Walters said that the administration also planned to pressure both credit card companies and mail delivery services to deal more seriously with the illicit sale of these prescription narcotics, stimulants and depressants. 
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Comment #7 posted by Patrick on March 02, 2004 at 07:11:16 PT
A Drug Free America is a farce
But then you regular readers of this site all know that.In describing why the administration is making the diversion of prescription drugs a priority, officials presented statistics which they said showed that while illicit drug use is declining overall, the abuse of prescription drugs has increased.Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that somehow they did know for sure that illicit drug use is declining. With all the governments jack-booted no knock raids making the headlines and reality TV shows like COPS it isn't any wonder that more people have started or would abuse the legal stuff. I mean why not? Who is gonna kick your door down for following a doctors orders? Think again while you clutch that little green bottle as kap so eloquently pointed out… It's a sad admission in a way; they have for all intent and purposes conceded that they can do nothing about that invisible flood of poisonous powders flowing through the US and are instead focusing on increased prosecution of easily monitored pharmacies and doctors. And you might want to add patients to that list.Hence my point that a drug free america is a farce. We have never been drug free, we are not drug free now and we will never be drug free. All we can really do is educate people on the dangers of drug abuse and addiction and provide assistance to those that fall into the trap of addiction. That's where the DEA's budget should be spent if anywhere. With over 60 years of government practice in trying to eradicate marijuana it's obvious that they can't wipe out or stop the flow of anything no matter how much more money they waste. Humans instinctively and naturally want to feel good. And a few sick bureaucratic bastards it seems want us to live in pain and misery while their pharmaceutical stocks continue to rise.This division of legal drugs and illegal drugs is failing us as a nation. And since they can't seem to stop illegal drug use now they are going to go after legal drug use and find ways to define its use as illegal. Sounds like the definition of insanity to me.
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Comment #6 posted by Virgil on March 02, 2004 at 06:33:44 PT
This is mission creep
Nobody, but nobody was interested in the DEA taking on such a huge bureaucratic mission except the DEA themselves. The DEA needs to be dismantled and all employees dismissed from public service forever. It is all conspiracy in fraud, waste, treason, and freedom robbing. 
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Comment #5 posted by afterburner on March 02, 2004 at 05:55:40 PT:
Kap, Before the DEA, Who Regulated Prescriptions? 
"When I received my medical marijuana from the government, the judge who had acquitted me was asked, 'Where can Elvy smoke?' My attorney suggested wherever nicotine is permissible, and the judge agreed with him."
- Elvy Musikka, who receives legal pot from the US government - Is this the real reason for the War on Tobacco?Point: [from today's Globe and Mail]Canadian pot a growing concern, U.S. says
BARRIE McKENNA,
Today's Paper: Tuesday, March 2, 2004 12:00 AM Page A5 
"A doubling of marijuana busts on the Canada-U.S. border, along with the discovery of increasingly sophisticated growing factories, has convinced the Bush administration that the Canadian pot problem is far worse than previously thought." 
FULL STORY http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040302/DRUG02//?query=marijuanaCounter-point:Battle For Canada #15: The Myth of BC Bud -
Battle For Canada with Richard Cowan 
 
Running Time: 18 min 
Date Entered: 19 Feb 2004 
Viewer Rating: 8.30 (5 votes) 
Number of Views: 766 
 "How The Prohibitionist Propaganda Machine Created A Phoney Excuse For War. Sound Familiar? It Isn’t The Weed They Fear. It Is The Freedom." 
http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-2508.html
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on March 02, 2004 at 05:05:09 PT:
More desperaton tactics
Friends, it's becoming obvious that the DEA is seriously worried concerning its' future as an organization. It must do everything it can, after having received a thumbs-down from the OMB last year for inefficiency and seeming inability to staunch the flow of illicit drugs into the country, to make it appear as if there is something they *can* demonstrate efficacy in.The proof? They are going after truly easy prey this time.Note their dependence upon the use of an established record keeping system. A system which they have monitored closely *since they first set it up* so many years ago; a doctor gets a DEA 'license' to dispense drugs.It's a sad admission in a way; they have for all intent and purposes conceded that they can do nothing about that invisible flood of poisonous powders flowing through the US and are instead focusing on increased prosecution of 
easily monitored pharmacies and doctors.All this will do, of course, is cause the nationally scandalous under-treatment of chronic pain to become even more disgraceful, as doctors and nurses, fearing for their careers, will prescribe even less pain medication to those most needful of it. More chronic pain sufferers screaming in agony, more such patients will commit suicide, more families will mourn at gravesides, more compassionate doctors (real heroes in my eyes) will face armed invasions of their offices, more patients will be traumatized while being there when it happens, more lost rights.All of course, to (superhero announcer voice) "Saaaaaaaaave The Chil-druhn!Here's what their *previous* efforts have bought for those children: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/12/thread12443.shtmlfrom the article:*Once patients get their drugs, they are frequently limited to a maximum of one month's supply. That means they run out faster, and then, because pharmacies can no longer carry large supplies, they struggle to find a pharmacy to refill their prescriptions. A further limitation, which is another direct result of the painkiller crackdown, is that many patients are being forced by their doctors to sign contracts in which they promise never to visit another doctor or pharmacy for prescriptions. So, if the pharmacy specified in the agreement doesn't have what the patient needs, the patient has to decide what is worse: to violate a contract by going to another pharmacy? Or to forgo medication that makes life livable? Sara Patterson was forced to make such a choice just last month. Her daughter Holly, who is 7, suffers from damaged nerves and a degenerative spinal disorder. Essentially, says Patterson, "her body doesn't regulate the pressure of her spinal fluid, and the fluid puts pressure on her damaged nerves, which causes the pain." Holly's form of excruciating agony comes and goes. She can spend three or four months in unrelenting, paralyzing pain, and then enjoy a month of relative comfort, only to have the pain strike suddenly once again. Last month, when the pain hit, Patterson called her daughter's pain clinic -- a two-hour drive from her Central Florida home -- to get a prescription for Holly. The doctors didn't answer. In a panic, Patterson went to Holly's local pediatrician, who immediately offered to prescribe medication. "But I said no, you can't do that," Patterson says. "I told her I had signed a contract that prohibited me from buying medication from another doctor. I was afraid of getting in trouble." Instead, Holly endured another day without relief before getting the right medication from the "legal" source. Meanwhile, Patterson says she fears that Holly will commit suicide. "Every birthday, she blows out her candles and wishes for the pain to go away," Patterson says, her voice quivering. "She constantly says that she doesn't want to live. She just asked me 15 minutes ago if she could go ahead and kill herself. Right now she doesn't understand what it means to terminate her life. But what happens when she gets older? She might actually succeed. Our time is running out."*Such overflowing compassion for the children. Such love and care. Oh yes, the DEA knows what's right for that little girl and her mother. They'll make sure she doesn't suffer the indignities of drug addiction, oh no. They'll just make sure that she SUFFERS, period. Bureaucratic SWINE.One more demonstration of what John Lennon said so many years ago: "90% of anything government touches turns to s**t."
 
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Comment #3 posted by Petard on March 02, 2004 at 02:09:15 PT
What a waste and misuse of Tax $
Do the math. The article says $138 MILLION for prevention of abuse by 6.2 Million people. That comes out to over $22.25 MILLION PER PERSON supposedly abusing prescription drugs. Makes me wonder who the non-TV version of "Super Millionaire" winners are they are hiding behind the scenes. Has Bushy Boy's daddy and the other Carlyle Group investors switched from weapons stocks to software/hardware, pharma, and piss testing stocks?
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Comment #2 posted by billos on March 02, 2004 at 02:05:24 PT:
Who's the teacher....
I would think that the fed trying to teach medical doctors how to detect abuse is like a slug trying to teach an eagle how to soar.
This all sounds as if the fed are trying to sound like they are winning the WoD with every illegal drug, not just MJ. Oh yeah, it's an election year.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on March 01, 2004 at 22:45:28 PT
Juat a Note
I believe I must snip the WP so I posted the article from Quad-City Times which is close to the one in the WP. Here's the link to the one in the WP.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20863-2004Mar1.html
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