They call it "Ground Zero" in their ever expanding war on drugs. They now have prescription pain killers in their cross hairs and want politicos to craft legislation to snoop into patient medical records.
Right now doctors are walking a fine line between over prescribing and facing a DEA inquiry and under-prescribing to adequately treat patients with chronic pain. The whole exercise is just nutty. People in constant pain want relief and doctors don't want trouble from law enforcement.
People in pain go shopping from doctor to doctor getting all manner of pain killers at great expense and effort. The doctors feel like the government has no business in their efforts to help patients. The DEA and narco Nazi's are looking for new ways to put people in jail and prison.
The reality is about 1/10th-2/10ths of one percent of each 100,000 people manage to kill themselves each year from pain killer overdoses. Primarily because they go out looking for as doctors who will give them pain meds and they can get. Instead of giving doctors the rights to administer pain meds, the system is screwing with both doctors and patients.
There is a registry for pain meds in just about every state. Now law enforcement personnel and the DEA want access to these registries so they can go out looking for people who buy what they deem as too many pain meds. The medical community is fighting back to keep patient medical records private and the law enforcement and DEA want Carte-Blanche access to patient medical records when the involve pain meds.
The article is on page A3 of the Wall Street Journal... POLICE, PILL MILLS AND PRIVACY, Prosecutors, Doctors in Kentucky Spar Over Bill to Curb Prescription Drug Abuse. Friday, April 20th, 2012 by Timothy W. Martin
Ron Paul has it right. If all drugs were legalized today, how many people would rush out and buy them? The reality is a whole industry prisons, jails, cops, courts, judges, lawyers and the criminal element would fade away for the most part.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, doctors whould not have to live in fear of the legal establishment for helping patients to the best of their medical ability.
This is really sick! Kentucky? I am a big fan of "Justified", which just ended the third season on, FXHD ch 248, on Direct TV. The show takes place in Harlen County Kentucky, starring a gun tote'n, shooter named Raylan Givens, U.S Marshal. Great show. Last three seasons have focused on Oxycontin, and marijuana growing, and drug dealing, in Harlan County Kentucky. This is a fictitious TV show!
ReplyDeleteIt seems the DEA likes this TV show as much as I do! I hope the producers of "Justified", took their story from the DEA, rather than the DEA investigating Kentucky because of the TV show! Janet Napolitano needs to go!
When legislators get a MD license then we can let them write laws for doctors in this area of medicine. The second issue is helping people manage cronic pain with ALL THE TOOLS IN THE TOOL BOX. Just recently the doc who helped write the assisted suicide law in Oregon got tired of swirling around the drain and went for physician assisted suicide. Doctors in general know the deal with end of life issues and have the tools at hand to manage their own end of life issues much differently from the general public.
ReplyDeleteI say let people in pain take whatever gives them quality of life. The DEA is manufacturing a boogie man along with the right to snoop into people's private medical files. I am surprised the ACLU has not picked up on this issue.
We already have plenty of laws on the books for drugs and alcohol abusers. I would legalize every illegal drug exept methamphetimine. I never have figured out meth addicts. Why people want to stay up for 3 days without any sleep is just hard to understand along with all the other things like their teeth rotting and rapid aging.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see the crime statistics in countries where drugs have been legalized. I would bet they are no different for base line crime issues. Costs of prosecuting and incarceration for marijuana use are way out of line with having the punishment fit the crime. It's time to try a different approach to drugs and drug enforcement in this country but I am afraid the older crowd writing laws isn't about to change on this issue. It will take a few more years for them to die off and retire. Old dogs won't change the way they think.
Everone can argue about the success or failure of the war on drugs but one fact is not up for discussion. The USA has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the total people in prisons and jails. It costs on average about $47,000.00 per year on average to keep someone in prison or jail. There are differences in the totals and will vary by region. We are now 40 years plus into the war on drugs at a cost of over $1 Trillion and what do we have to show for the effort and expense?
ReplyDeletePerhaps if our prisons were run as prisons and not as resorts where you are given free medical care,free education, free legal aid, cable tv and you get to hang out pump weights and have a good time, people might have less intrest in going to prison. I have a friend who works at the prison in Ontario. They recently built several new racket ball courts because the prisoners were complaining that it was hard to get a court and they were concerned with a lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteHere's another factoid from the Saturday WSJ:
ReplyDeleteAccording to the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Assoc.) in the year 2000 there were 85,000 deaths due to alcohol (more than the totals for all illict drugs comboined) v. 17,000 deaths attributed to drugs. Found on page C1 of the Wall Street Journal April 21/22, 2012 RETHINKING THE WAR ON DRUGS.
Clearly, the legalization of alcohol did not elimiate the abuses but it did decriminalize it for most users. Preohibition, plus massive undifferentiated enforcement has not worked in the War on Drugs.
I bet some of those DEA agents drink booze so whats the difference?
ReplyDelete