The Criminalization Of Medicine
Seething drug warriors hot for their next bust are the reason so many people in pain can't get adequate meds to ease their suffering.
Harvey Silverglate writes in the WSJ:
Last month a federal jury in Boston acquitted pain-relief specialist Dr. Joseph Zolot and his nurse-practitioner Lisa Pliner of overprescribing oxycodone, methadone and fentanyl. This prosecution shows why drug warriors need either to clarify the currently indecipherable line between treating pain and unlawfully feeding drug addicts' habits, or get out of the business of policing and terrorizing physicians. Unfortunately, the government uses legal ambiguity for tactical advantage and will not readily clarify the lines it expects doctors to follow at their peril.Dr. Zolot and Ms. Pliner were indicted in 2011 for their treatment of six patients between 2004 and 2006. They faced lengthy, consecutive sentences of up to 20 years for each count if convicted. Prosecutors alleged that the two providers recklessly dispensed narcotic painkillers without legitimate medical purpose and were, in effect, dealing. The two pleaded not guilty, maintaining that their prescription practices were proper, and that they were not responsible for their patients' subsequent abuses. The jurors unanimously agreed.
...The prosecutions of Drs. Hurwitz and Zolot, nurse Pliner and others have ramifications that extend beyond the medical professionals unlucky enough to be caught in the DEA's web. Doctors are increasingly afraid to prescribe certain drugs to patients who might seriously need them.
According to a 2005 survey conducted by USA Today, ABC and Stanford University Medical Center, only half of chronic pain sufferers, including cancer patients, report that their doctors are adequately relieving their pain. "It's a criminalization of medicine," Ms. Pliner told one Boston reporter after the trial, adding that she was afraid, at least for now, to work as a nurse practitioner.
A big part of convictions they do get seems to be prosecutorial extortion. Silverglate continues:
Yet Dr. Zolot's acquittal should not give the medical community much comfort. It is probably an aberration, attributable to the Boston prosecutors' failure to "flip" a witness. The government failed to convince nurse practitioner Pliner to testify against her boss in exchange for favorable treatment. Ms. Pliner believed that Dr. Zolot was a conscientious and caring doctor and that neither of them had done anything wrong.Experienced criminal-defense lawyers have endless stories of their clients being offered favorable deals, even immunity from prosecution, if they would provide incriminating testimony against higher-ups. The problem, as Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz often told his criminal-law students, is that this practice teaches witnesses "not only to sing, but also to compose."
...One lawyer in the Zolot case attributed the two defendants' sticking together to the fact that the two shared a special kinship: They were Soviet refuseniks who came to America as political refugees and met in this country:. "Both have a healthy mistrust of the government."
As should we all.
Flipping witnesses. Piling on charges and then offering a plea bargain. Entrapping people by getting them to "lie" to federal officers. Structuring.
All ways to convict otherwise innocent people.
a_random_guy at June 16, 2015 2:42 AM
That's exactly what these tactics are. This is not the country we're supposed to be living in.
Amy Alkon at June 16, 2015 5:15 AM
We're living in a soft tyranny.
When it becomes a hard tyranny, people like Zolot and Pliner would be arrested in the night, and sent to the gulags for "crimes against the state".
Come to think of it, so would Dershowitz.
I R A Darth Aggie at June 16, 2015 6:40 AM
This has hit home for my family recently. My mom has had problems with insomnia for most of her life. For the past several years she's been on Ambien. The doctor just cut her off. He says he's no longer going to write Ambien prescriptions because of DEA scrutiny, and that most of the other doctors he knows are doing the same.
The trope was that under Obamacare, instead of getting treatment for your condition, they'll just send you home with pain pills. Well, guess what: There won't be any pain pills.
Cousin Dave at June 16, 2015 6:43 AM
Smart doctor, Cousin Dave. That stuff is poison.
Get your mom a pot card and some Indica edibles. Much healthier.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 16, 2015 10:14 PM
The war against pain relief is what finally got me over the line to supporting legalizing ALL drugs. It's absurd the abuse against patients you see in hospitals (and yes it is ABUSE, and should be prosecuted as such). I've seen RN's refuse to give a recent AMPUTEE pain meds because "she's an addict"-based on nothing more than the fact that the RN thinks no one should need pain meds ever. It's so very common for RNs, and even Drs, to act like they work for the DEA. Which is stupid. Pain is what the patient says it is-period. There is no way to objectively judge someone else's pain, so medical personnel are supposed to take the patient at their word and get them adequate pain relief As Decided By The Patient-not what the nurse thinks should be adequate. I've had 7 major surgeries, and had endometriosis for a long time before my hysterectomy. Which means I've taken lots of pain meds and have a pretty good tolerance built up. They treat me like a drug seeker when I tell them a 5mg Norco is like a Tylenol to me.
Not to mention, the average hospital stay is 3 days. You can not cause-or cure-an addiction in 3 days. All you can do is make someone miserable in pain. Which means some of them must be sadists. Pain literally inhibits healing.
momof4 at June 17, 2015 6:02 AM
Gog, my mom would probably be climbing the walls if she smoked pot. Most sedatives and depressants have a counter-effect on her. Ambien is one of the few things she's ever tried that worked.
Cousin Dave at June 17, 2015 7:17 AM
I used ambien nightly for about 3 years. I'm glad to be off it, but it took major surgery and it's accompanying 3 weeks of oxy use, to get me off it without horrible withdrawal. But, I don't think it's the governments business to tell people they can or can't take ambien at night if they need to sleep. Adults should be able to make such decisions for themselves.
I've got a horrible *something* wrong with a muscle in my upper left back/shoulder area right now. Going into it's 4th week of it being knotted up tighter than a Charlie horse, feeling like a red hot poker in my back, shooting pains up my neck and down my back. I finally went to the Dr last week. You'd think I was a heroin addict, just for wanting some pain pills to help till the physical therapy (hopefully) does its job. I'm an adult. I know when I'm in pain that OTC meds won't handle.
momof4 at June 18, 2015 5:34 AM
Leave a comment