ron paul is a republican in name, but actually a
libertaran if you know his history. i am not with my
conservative friends on this one. i think the war ob
drugs makes no sense and is a waste. drugs should be
legalixed and if just part of the saved money is spent
on treatment, then we'd be better off. 
no i am not encouraging anyone to take drugs, just
that treatment is more effective than jail, and we r
wasting money on the "war on drugs" that could be used
to treat people addicted to drugs and actually help
them. not to mention that violet crime would go down.
just my opinion. 

--- Mike Collis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I think this is interesting, and rather frightening.
>  Do we have any
> comments? 
> Mike 
> 
> Why is Our Government Pursuing a War on Doctors?
> By David B. Brushwood, R.Ph., J.D.
> We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes.
> There's a wonderful phrase,
> "The Fog of War." What the Fog of War means is that
> war is so complex it's
> beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend
> all the variables. Our
> judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And
> we kill people
> unnecessarily.
> Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense, 1961-1968.
> Ron Paul, M.D., a Republican United States
> Congressman from Texas, recently
> declared on his website that "The War on Drugs is a
> War on Doctors." Dr.
> Paul concludes that by applying federal statutes
> intended for drug dealers,
> "prosecutors are waging a senseless war on doctors."
> The victims of this
> war, says Dr. Paul, are not only doctors but also
> their untreated or under
> treated patients in pain.
> This conclusion is not news to anyone who has been
> keeping track of drug
> enforcement activities over the past several years.
> It is certainly not news
> to Dr. Frank Fisher, Pharmacist Stephen Miller, and
> Miller's wife Madeline
> Miller. All three were charged with five counts of
> murder in alleged deaths
> resulting from their prescribing and dispensing of
> opioid analgesics to pain
> patients. All three have been exonerated. It is not
> news to over 100 other
> doctors and pharmacists who have been charged with
> crimes for providing
> opioid analgesics to pain patients. It is not news
> to chronic pain patients
> who are living and dying in agony because doctors
> and pharmacists are afraid
> to help them. It is not news to California
> Republican State Senator Sam
> Aanstad, a dentist who has introduced legislation
> that would significantly
> curtail the ability of prosecutors to charge doctors
> with crimes for
> prescribing pain medications. It is not news to the
> news media, who have
> finally recognized that the real story is the war on
> doctors and not the
> diversion of opioids. Reporter Jen McCaffrey, of the
> Roanoke Times covered
> the trial of Dr. Cecil Knox, who was acquitted of
> most charges but still
> faces trial in a few remaining counts. She says that
> the joke among doctors
> in Roanoke is "write a prescription, go to jail."
> This so-called "joke" is
> not a bit funny. It is too true to be funny. 
> Make no mistake. There is a war on doctors. There
> are tens of thousands of
> innocent victims of this war. The war must be
> stopped. Dr. Ron Paul's
> congressional colleagues should listen to him and
> act quickly.
> Why is the war on doctors happening? Why is it
> happening now? Who is
> responsible for this tragic injustice? What factors
> have brought us to this
> intolerable situation from which an exit strategy
> must immediately be found?
> Having studied the war on doctors for the past year,
> I believe there are at
> least seven separate reasons for this war to happen
> and to happen now. I
> base this conclusion on my study of documents from
> criminal cases against
> doctors and pharmacists, and on public comments by
> both health care
> professionals and drug enforcement authorities.
> These are the seven reasons:
> 1. The Pain Management Movement. Well intentioned
> advocacy groups have
> championed the pain patient's right to relief of
> suffering. Doctors have
> responded by increasing their prescribing of opioids
> to treat pain. But
> standards for prescribing are unclear, especially
> for patients who are at
> risk of aberrant medication behaviors, drug abuse,
> or addiction. Guidelines
> for prescribing have been interpreted as standards,
> and standards are used
> as a checklist of "gotchas" by law enforcement. No
> high volume prescriber
> can practice without occasionally bending a rule
> because their patients are
> all individuals with unique needs. The
> guidelines/standards/checklists are
> useless in clinical practice, but they provide a
> clear roadmap for the
> prosecution of a doctor for unlawful practice. 
> 2. The Rise of the Pain Management Specialist.
> Although there is
> disagreement over who should be able to use the
> title "Pain Management
> Specialist," it is evident that a small cadre of
> physicians have carved out
> for themselves a new specialty in the treatment of
> chronic pain. Rightfully
> proud of themselves and their achievements, some of
> these experts wrongly
> criticize their generalist colleagues who treat pain
> because there are not
> enough specialists to do this difficult job. Eager
> to accept hundreds of
> dollars per hour reviewing generalist's records,
> some specialists criticize
> the care provided by generalists and conclude that
> because it was not the
> best quality care possible, it was criminal drug
> diversion. 
> 3. The Pharmacist as Informant. For decades
> pharmacists have been required
> to distinguish legitimate prescriptions from
> forgeries. In the past ten
> years, pharmacists have also been asked to evaluate
> the appropriateness of a
> clearly legal prescription, through a process known
> as "Drug Use Review."
> Many pharmacists do this job well and they improve
> the quality of patients'
> lives while protecting the integrity of the nation's
> drug supply. Some
> pharmacists, egged on by drug enforcement
> authorities, have misunderstood
> their role as health care professionals and have
> become the enemy of
> physicians and patients, reporting any out-of-the
> ordinary prescribing to
> the police (without studying the issue or contacting
> the prescriber), then
> basking in the camaraderie they enjoy with law
> enforcement (until they are
> arrested for improper dispensing). 
> 4. Criminality in Health Care. A tiny few bad actors
> have tarnished the
> reputation of health care professions. An English
> community physician has
> admitted to euthanizing over 200 elderly patients. A
> New Jersey nurse has
> admitted the same with about 40 hospitalized
> patients. A Kansas City
> pharmacist deliberately diluted chemotherapy to
> increase his profits. Of
> course, there is the widely publicized account of
> Jack Kevorkian and his
> in-your-face challenges to law enforcement,
> shamelessly daring them to
> prosecute him as he publicly killed one patient
> after another. These stories
> lead some prosecutors to believe that local doctors
> may be psychopathic
> Unabombers, gleefully poisoning the community with
> illicit drugs.
> Compassionate care is easily confused with massive
> drug diversion when
> investigators lose objectivity and find only what
> they have been taught to
> find. 
> 5. Post 9-11 Security. These are threatening times.
> The government has
> promised to protect the public from evil doers. But
> how can the government
> protect the public from terrorists if it can't even
> provide protection from
> drug diversion? The failed War on Drugs needs a
> success story and doctors
> are available as safe targets. Unlike drug lords,
> doctors don't shoot back,
> they naively think the legal system is consistently
> fair, and they don't
> know how to find the best criminal lawyers. Doctors
> are sitting ducks. They
> are being sacrificed to cover up massive failure by
> drug control
> authorities. Prosecutions of doctors are used to
> assure the public that the
> country is safe. 
> 6. Misled Media. Reporters have published stories
> critical of high opioid
> prescribers, suggesting that irresponsible
> prescribing is the cause of drug
> diversion. These stories are based on information
> obtained from sources that
> 
=== message truncated ===


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