Chip Taylor

Our insane drug policy, pt. 2

As I've said before, in an ideal world everyone who needs pain relievers would get them and people who only want them to abuse would... well... drink booze I guess.

But we don't live in an ideal world, so we have to make a choice. Do we strive to make access so restrictive that absolutely no abusers get access, even thought that means some legitimate patients do without? Or do we allow doctors to prescribe as they see fit, realizing that some abusers are going to get unneeded pain relievers?

I prefer the latter. Jacob Sullum notes that the federal government's official policy, as expressed by its prosecutors, is the former:

The prosecutors did not dispute that Hurwitz had helped hundreds of patients recover their lives by prescribing the high doses of narcotics they needed to control their chronic pain. Instead they pointed to the small minority of his patients—5 to 10 percent, by his attorneys' estimate—who were misusing the painkillers he prescribed, selling them on the black market, or both.

The prosecutors did not claim Hurwitz, who faces a possible life sentence, got so much as a dime from illegal drug sales. Instead they pointed to his income as a physician, which they said was boosted by fees from patients who were faking or exaggerating their pain.

The prosecutors did not allege that Hurwitz had any sort of explicit arrangement with those patients. Instead they described a "conspiracy of silence," carried out by "a wink and a nod."

The evidence supporting this theory was, not surprisingly, ambiguous at best, leaving plenty of room for reasonable doubt. Yet the prosecutors got the jury to overlook the obvious weaknesses in their case and convict Hurwitz, in essence, of trusting his patients too much.

As Sullum observes, the feds have sent a clear message to doctors that they should err on the side of denying drugs to the truly pain-wracked.

This is the same doctor that tried to rely on the fact that he had followed DEA guidelines as a defense. Guidelines that the DEA then withdrew for some reason.

Hat tip: Catallarchy