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ought not be spoken abroad, I will not divulge, reckoning that all such should be kept secret.

If they turn to the DEA as their teacher and guide rather than Hippocrites who does this hurt you may ask, other than the patients?

It hurts everyone.

Insurance pays for the additional visits so premiums may rise. Your doctor has less time for each patient as he has to see more to accommodate the DEA. The disabled patient enabled by his narcotic medication is now able to enter the workforce. Welfare and disability payments are reduced. But this is a scenario not realized because of the DEA.

The DEA has entered your consultation room when you meet with your doctor. Big brother at its best.

..."the DEA also is the agency targeting pain doctors who write frequent narcotic prescriptions and collecting information leading to arrests. And as many doctors have learned, the government does not require evidence of what is normally considered criminal intent to bring charges.

"We don't have to prove extra money is being made or doctors are getting favors for prescribing," Willis of the DEA said. "What we have to prove is that they are operating outside the course of legitimate medical practice."

That standard, however, is ever-changing, and one that is generally set by state medical boards, rather than by any single national agency. The standard is also broad, leading to prosecutions such as the one against Hassman in Tucson. In the federal criminal complaint against her, the sole allegation is that she prescribed controlled substances "not being in the usual course of professional practice and not for any legitimate medical purpose." The Arizona U.S. attorney's office declined to discuss the case.

The broadness of the medical care standard has led to drug charges against entire practices (such as the seven-doctor Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C.), murder charges against a California doctor who prescribed OxyContin for a woman who had high levels of the drug in her system when she was killed as a passenger in an auto accident, and multiple murder charges against a Roanoke doctor for prescribing narcotics misused by patients, resulting in overdoses. Pharmacists, doctors' office managers and receptionists have been charged as well.*

At one time the DEA had a purpose* but it has certainly not made any inroads into the "drug war". Instead it now justifies its existence by criminalizing those whose work should be lauded.

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/ ac2/wp-dyn/A37015-2003Dec28?la nguage=printer
* http://members.tripod.com/nkti uro/hippocra.htm

For a history of the DEA's mandate and proportionate number of "Bad" doctors in the "war on drugs" please see:
http://www.aapsonline.org/ painman/paindocs2/libbystateme nt.pdf

Learn more about this author, Carol Levy.
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