Dear Friends in Pain,

There will be a continual effort to stop medication abuse. Again
CIPers are not addicts. Oxycontin is not a street drug. The main
difference is "heroin" was never legal, what is created for those
medically suffering is not for the "addict."

Let us put effort and push on those who are addicts, let budget
and economy on a federal level, house, imprison, mandate
treatment and UA's for a minimum of 5 to 10 years. Until we
DO the patient in pain will suffer.

There is a better way...It is NOT removing the practice of
medicine from the physicians...

Peace,
Karen

For the full link please open here The Double Life of OxyContin.
http://lcmedia.com/mindprgm.htm

EXERPT
In the past five years, federal and state law enforcement authorities
have charged several hundred doctors with offenses related to the
prescribing of controlled substances. Allegations range from
prescribing outside the bounds of medical practice to drug
trafficking to homicide. Many doctors in the highly specialized field
of pain treatment fear these high-profile arrests will hurt patients.
Dr. Russell Portenoy is Chairman of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care
at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. He says that
opioids are extremely effective for treating pain, restoring many
patients to active, productive lives. But, because opioid medications
can be abused, primary care doctors are already wary of prescribing
them. Criminal investigations, he says, are likely to make the
situation even worse: "Pain specialists are very concerned that
primary care physicians are reluctant to prescribe, not because the
clinical skill set is so challenging but because they are afraid they
will become the objects of scrutiny on the part of law enforcement
and the regulatory agencies in each state, and, in fact, federal law
enforcement as well."

The Drug Enforcement Administration points out that the number
doctors arrested for diversion of controlled substances is
proportionately small - in 2003, there were 736 investigations,
resulting in 51 arrests. That's out of a total number of almost 1
million doctors with the right to prescribe controlled substances.
But ethicist Sandra Johnson agrees with Dr. Russell Portenoy that
criminal investigations are having a chilling effect on doctors.
Johnson is professor of health, law and ethics at St. Louis
University. She studies the legal, regulatory, and financial issues
related to the prescription of controlled substances for pain. She
says numbers are not the issue: "You don't have to hear many stories,
if you're a physician in practice, of physicians being arrested,
physicians being led away in handcuffs, patients' files confiscated,
to understand that the risk in numbers is small but in terms of
impact, it's devastating


Karen Hallenbeck~Sikorsky~George BS,RN,UM,QC
Owner-Moderator
"AnGeLsInPain"
"OneVoiceInPain"

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AnGeLsInPain

Interqual Certified
Published Psychiatric Researcher
Advocate for those in CIP, HIV, Psychologic Pain
"A Higher Power is necessary to find the ability to withstand self
destruction.."


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