|
"By demonizing physicians as drug dealers and
exaggerating the health risk of pain management,
the federal government has made
physicians scapegoats for the failed drug war.
Even worse, the Drug Enforcement
Administration's renewed war on pain
doctors has frightened many physicians out of
pain management altogether, exacerbating an
already serious health crisis - the widespread
undertreatment of intractable pain."
"Experts agree that tens of millions of Americans
suffer from undertreated or untreated
pain ... According to one 1999 survey, just
one in four pain patients received treatment
adequate to alleviate suffering."
"The medical evidence overwhelmingly
indicates that when administered properly,
opioid therapy rarely, if ever, results in 'accidental
addiction' or opioid abuse."
"Pain specialists make an important distinction
between patients who depend on opiates to
function normally – to get out of bed, tend to
household chores, and hold down jobs – and
|
addicts who take drugs for euphoria, and
whose lifestyles deteriorate as a result of taking
opiates, instead of improving. The DEA
makes no such distinction."
"The relationship between a doctor and his
patient is crucial to the proper assessment and
treatment of the patient's condition. The
DEA's aggressive investigative procedure
poisons the doctor-patient relationship from
both sides."
"The DEA continues to lower its evidentiary
standards, making it nearly impossible for many
doctors to determine what is and isn’t permitted."
"Large quantities of narcotics routinely go
missing en route from manufacturers to wholesalers
and from wholesalers to retailers. The
DEA itself acknowledges this problem.
Given the poor job the DEA is doing of
monitoring the narcotics it's charged with
overseeing ... DEA's attempt to blame physicians
for the drugs' street availability seems
arbitrary, unjustified, and capricious."
|
