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Newsbrief:
Rep.
Ron
Paul
Brings
Pain
Doctor
Prosecution
Issue
to
House
7/9/04
For the first time, if only
briefly, members of the US Congress on Wednesday dealt with the issue of
the overzealous prosecution of pain management physicians by the Justice
Department. The occasion was an effort by libertarian Republican
Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a physician himself, to amend the Justice Department
appropriations bill to forbid expenditures for targeting doctors who are
merely doing their jobs.
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 |
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Rep. Ron Paul
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Rep. Paul, long a foe of
drug war excess, was inspired by a wave of federal prosecutions of pain
doctors, including some of the nation's most prominent pain management
physicians, such as Dr. William Hurwitz, currently under indictment in
northern Virginia, and Dr. Cecil Knox, currently facing a second trial
in southwestern Virginia after a federal jury failed to convict on any
charges the first time around.
Paul's amendment would protect
doctors who prescribe anything other than a Schedule I controlled substance.
Since Schedule I drugs (marijuana, heroin, ecstasy) are by definition without
any accepted medical use in the US, that leaves the whole opioid pharmacopeia
available to physicians.
"What this amendment does
is it denies funding to the Department of Justice to prosecute doctors
for prescribing legal drugs," Rep. Paul told the committee. "The
reason I bring this up is to call attention to the Members of a growing
and difficult problem developing in this country, and that is that more
and more doctors now are being prosecuted by the Justice Department under
the laws that were designated for going after drug kingpins, for illegal
drug dealers; but they are using the same laws to go after doctors."
Paul cited some 400 prosecutions
of doctors and railed against a system that abrogates physician's decision-making
power to a DEA employee. "We have now created a system where a federal
bureaucrat makes the medical decision about whether or not a doctor has
prescribed too many pain pills," Paul continued. The result, he said,
is inadequate pain treatment. "What this is doing is making everybody
fearful," he said. "The other doctors are frightened. Nurses
are too frightened to give adequate pain medications even in the hospitals
because of this atmosphere."
Responses came from Reps.
Mark Souder (R-IN) and Frank Wolf (R-VA), who spoke of how southwest Virginia
had been "devastated" by prescription drug abuse. For that reason,
said Wolf, he opposed Paul's amendment.
The amendment was ruled out
of order by the committee chair the same day on the grounds that it would
amend law, something beyond the scope of an appropriations bill.
But the pain crisis has entered the nation's capitol.
-- END --
|
Issue #345, 7/9/04
Editorial: Time for Congress to Get Real |
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International AIDS Conference Puts Focus on Thai War on Drugs |
Making it Official: More Initiatives Move Toward November Ballot |
ALERT: "Thank or Spank" Your Congressman for This Week's Medical Marijuana Vote |
Newsbrief: Rep. Ron Paul Brings Pain Doctor Prosecution Issue to House |
Newsbrief: US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Rejects DEA Motion for New Hemp Hearing |
Newsbrief: Kansas Supreme Court Says Cut Methamphetamine Sentences |
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Newsbrief: Iranians Protest US, UK Blind Eye to Afghan Opium Crop |
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Newsbrief: California Prisons "Dysfunctional," State Report Concludes |
Movie Opening: Maria Full of Grace |
Media Scan: New CSDP Ad -- Richard Paey and Rush Limbaugh |
This Week in History |
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The Reformer's Calendar
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