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Pain Treatment Advocacy Group Sues State of WA

Jun 25, 2008

By: Donna Gordon Blankinship

The Associated Press SEATTLE - A pain treatment advocacy group filed suit Wednesday in federal court to challenge the restrictions Washington state officials have put on prescription pain medication.

The nonprofit Pain Relief Network says the guidelines for prescribing narcotics, written by the Washington state Department of Health and published in March 2007, have influenced pain treatment across the country and have made doctors afraid to give opiate prescriptions[...]

Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, Damages a class action lawsuit by Laura Cooper (lead attorney) et al., Filed: 2008-06-24

Exhibit 1: The WA state Opioid Dosing "Guidelines" by Agency Medical Directors Group (AMDG); Mar. 2007; Filed 2008-06-24

Exhibit 2: Findings of Fact Laura Cooper, Esq.; Filed 2008-06-24 www.painreliefnetwork.org

Lawyers for a Haysville, Kansas, physician facing a 34-count federal indictment alleging he acted as a drug dealer in prescribing pain medications fought back last Friday, filing in federal court <

Schneider Defense Calls DOJ Prosecution Unconstitutional: Read the Briefs

As always, we ask that you help PRN fight to protect the rights of patients and the doctors who treat them. Please click the link below.

Schneider defense calls DOJ prosecution Unconstitutional

This case is an effort by the federal government to define and regulate the practice of medicine masquarading as a criminal prosecution. This case should not be about whether Dr. Schneider fell short of the standard of care for certain patients, but whether he engaged in the legitimate practice of medicine [...]

Memorandum of points and authorities in support of the defendants' joint motion for absention

The federal government has usurped the authority of the State of Kansas to regulate medicine within the State by bringing a halt to its regulatory process, and assuming that authority, impermissibly, through the federal criminal process. If any part of the Indictment is not dismissed as unconstitutional or otherwise defective, this Court should abstain, allowing the State process to run its course [...]

Competetive Enterprise Institute Joins Pain Relief Network in the battle against untreated pain

May 16, 2008
Cei.orgToday, millions of Americans live in chronic pain, without adequate access to prescription pain medications, because their doctors are too afraid of being harassed or even arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration to prescribe sufficient doses. Everyone agrees that doctors should not be using their positions to supply addicts with narcotics or feed the illicit drug market. Many doctors, however, have been arrested or threatened with loss of their medical licenses simply for prescribing opiate-based pain medications in doses that federal drug authorities believe are too high [...]

www.painreliefnetwork.org

Federal prosecutors in the case of Haysville, Kansas, physician Dr.

As part of its 2007 Annual Report, released Wednesday, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) issu

In a drama that has been played out all too many times across the country in recent years, the Justice Department's campaign against prescription drug abuse -- if you can call it that -- came in cr

Haysville, Kansas, physician Dr.

A new study has found that while emergency room prescribing of opioid pain medications for ER patients complaining of pain has increased in recent years, doctors are less likely to prescribe them f

The British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has criticized the Labor government's ongoing consultation on

In July and September I wrote here about the plight of Bill Mangino, a Pennsylvania physician who was decent enough to treat patients with the pain medications (opiates) that they needed, and was punished for these good deeds with a prosecution and now imprisonment -- all over a crime that never happened and for which no evidence exists happened.

Yesterday I heard from Dr. James Stacks, a Mangino supporter and board member of the Pain Relief Network, with the news that Dr. Mangino had asked we post correspondence he sent to a judge prior to a hearing today that he hopes will get him a new trial and freedom in the meantime. The briefs were put together by Mangino himself, written by hand, but has been scanned for our edification online as well. Interested parties can read some commentary on it by Alex DeLuca here, or go straight to the briefs online here or here.

A cutting quote that Dr. Mangino used as his signature line in the documents:

Statutes must mean what they say... and say what they mean.

Richard Paey, the wheelchair-bound Florida pain patient sentenced to 25 years in prison as a drug dealer for seeking desperately-needed medications, may be a free man by the time you read this.

The Paey Pardon, as Scott blogged about here and here, was a nice piece of news, of the kind that doesn't come around too often. The last such pleasant surprise I had came in late 2000, when Kemba Smith and Dorothy Gaines were pardoned by then-President Clinton. I immediately left a message for my friend Rob Stewart, who had played a major role in bringing the Gaines case to prominence by writing it in the old Drug Policy Letter (Drug Policy Foundation, predecessor to Drug Policy Alliance), which led to coverage of her case by Frontline. Rob told me later he had two messages on his voicemail -- one from me and one from Dorothy Gaines. These moments are rewards for all the rest of it.

Unfortunately, not many political leaders seem to be of the moral caliber of Gov. Crist, and there are many more victims of the drug laws who remain unpardoned. Two of them, whom I happen to know, were sentenced to prison a week ago. One of them was Bryan Epis, the first person prosecuted by the feds for medical marijuana. He received the same 10-year sentence. The other was William Mangino, a pain physician in Pennsylvania, sentenced to 8 1/2 - 20 years.

Bryan was allowed to remain free pending appeal. See our upcoming Chronicle newsbrief for some detail. Bryan actually told me a few days before the court date that he anticipated getting another 10 years, but being allowed to stay free pending appeal, and he was right. He says he has a good chance on appeal, and it sounds like it -- the prosecution really acted unethically in his case, and the judge, who is by no means biased toward defendants, commented that there are issues the appellate court may want to look at.

Dr. Mangino predicted a harsh sentence, and that he would not be allowed to stay free pending appeal. Unfortunately, he was right too. Christine Heberle's blog post on the War on Doctors/Pain Crisis blog lays out the glaring absence of any crime.

Accountability for injustices committed under the guise of law may be too much to hope for. But at least we should have justice now. I simply don't feel that letting people like Richard Paey and Bryan Epis and Bill Mangino live their lives unmolested by the government is asking for too much.

As we celebrate Richard Paey's freedom today, it is important to remember that his tragic fate was no accident. Many people worked very hard at tax-payers' expense to put this innocent and miserable man behind bars. They deserve recognition today as well.

Certainly, these events vividly depict the insanity of a war on drugs that targets seriously ill people for trying to treat their own pain:

State prosecutors concede there's no evidence Paey ever sold or gave his medication away. Nevertheless, under draconian drug-war statutes, these prosecutors could pursue distribution charges against him based solely on the amount of medication he possessed (the unauthorized possession of as few as 60 tablets of some pain medications can qualify a person as a "drug trafficker"). [National Review]

Yet, as Radley Balko revealed at National Review, the persecution of Richard Paey involved so much more than the reckless enforcement of short-sighted laws. This was a prolonged and deliberate campaign on the part of malicious prosecutors and vengeful prison officials.

*Prosecutors blamed Paey's harsh sentence on Paey himself, claiming that he should have accepted a plea bargain. As Balko explains, they essentially retaliated against him for asserting his factual innocence and insisting on his right to a jury trial.

*Prison officials transferred Paey further away from his family after he gave a New York Times interview that was critical of the State of Florida.

*Prison medical staff threatened to withhold Paey's medication, also in apparent retaliation for his interview with the New York Times. Since he could die without it, this was the functional equivalent of a death threat and caused him great distress.

Now that Florida's Governor and Cabinet have concluded that Paey did nothing wrong, it is time to examine the way he was treated throughout this great travesty. If there are sociopaths working in Florida's criminal justice system, that's something Governor Crist would want to know about. If we can afford to imprison people for decades in order to protect ourselves from drugs, surely we can also afford to evaluate public servants who wield extraordinary power in order to ensure that they aren't deeply disturbed.

Mentally healthy people do not persecute the seriously ill, even if the drug war says it's ok.

The plight of Richard Paey has been shocking even by the drug war's rock bottom standards. Sentenced to 25 years in a Florida prison for possession of the pain medication he used to treat his own crippling back pain, Paey spent the last 3½ years behind bars.

Today, he is free:

Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet voted unanimously to grant Paey a full pardon Thursday morning for his 2004 conviction on drug trafficking and possession charges.

"We aim to right a wrong and exercise compassion and to do it with grace," the governor said. "Congratulations … and I state he should be released today."

With that, Paey's wife Linda, their three children, a family friend and attorney John Flannery II hugged and cried at the podium, the entire cabinet meeting room erupting into applause at 9:40 a.m. [St. Petersburg Times]

Justice in the war on drugs is a rare spectacle, and it is just delightful to witness. We've reported endlessly on this case, as have so many others, and it is wonderful to find that these efforts have not been in vain.

A Florida man serving a 25-year sentence as a drug dealer for attempting to obtain pain medications for his back injuries will be granted an expedited chance to appeal for clemency.

Pain Relief Network's Siobhan Reynolds and son are slated to appear on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet --- tomorrow morning, I think, Tuesday -- a Fox network talk program that airs at 9:00am in the New York area and on various Fox stations around the country.

Dr. William Mangino is out on bail and able to work on his own appeal as was hoped.

Richard Paey's clemency petition has been granted expedited consideration by Gov. Crist and the Florida Board of Clemency. Visit Alex DeLuca/PRN's War on Doctors / Pain Crisis blog for info.

(See our pain archive here. Subscribe to our pain feed via RSS here.

Another pain physician, Dr. William Mangino, was convicted on trumped up charges equating his reasonable prescribing of opioid pain medications in the course of practicing medicine with illegal drug dealing. He is in jail pending sentencing, unless someone comes up with the $3,500 bail he needs to get out.

Dr. Mangino is a writer and a thinker, and throughout his lengthy travail he has sent a copious amount of email to people who are interested in this problem, including myself -- not just about himself but commentary on the issue too, and on prosecutions brought against other doctors, much of it very detailed. It always makes me sad when these cases turn out badly (or when most drug cases turn out badly, for that matter), but the combination of the absence of his emails with the news itself has reinforced the reality of it for me. It probably won't be long, though, before he writes some things for us about this latest stage and someone gets it typed up and posted.

Alex DeLuca has an update that includes some of the defense strategies for challenging the conviction (which include a Motion for a Directed Verdict of Not Guilty), the address for writing to Dr. Mangino in jail, and other information.