There are definitely mixed feelings in the pain medicine community when it comes to the DEA's new proposed policy statement on prescribing pain medications. While everyone is pleased that the agency has loosened up its prescribing rules—allowing doctors to write three one-month pain med prescriptions at a time—there is some dispute over whether the DEA's latest policy statement represents anything other than the agency doing business as usual.

I created and chaired the Vt. Grassroots Party(VGP) from '92 to 2000 and was a Gubernatorial candidate against Howard Dean in '94 & '96 as well as being 1 of 14 Americans to be on the Presidential ballot in the 2000 election. The VGP received enough votes in just our 2nd election w/o benefit of any money to become the only other major political party in Vt. besides the Republicrats and Demopublicans. I've been an active anti-prohibitionist since '67. I've sponsored and organized annual cannabis awareness rallies in Burlington, Vt. since '89. I