Hard as it may be to believe, and I have to admit, I’m in a dead faint about it, but John Tierney wrote something that a) is well-argued and b) is absolutely right today. Hell freezes over and I joined Concerned Women for America. Okay, just kidding about those last part and this here Texan thinks a cold hell would be worse than a hot one. But it’s true–Tierney makes sense!
But many doctors are now afraid to give painkillers to either kind of patient. The D.E.A. tried reassuring them by working with pain-management experts to produce a pamphlet setting out guidelines for doctors who want to avoid investigation. But last fall, the agency said it wasn’t bound by the guidelines after all, and could investigate even when it had no reason to suspect a doctor….
If enough doctors are jailed or scared into not writing prescriptions, it’s conceivable that this drug war could have more impact than the ones against heroin and cocaine - doctors, after all, are harder to replace than crack dealers. But even if there’s less OxyContin on the street, is that worth the suffering of patients who can’t get the painkillers they need?
Of course, I tend to be libertarian in my views on personal vices. Not that I think there’s anything right about having them (despite rumors that I *heart* smoking, I actually despise it as a filthy habit that is, however, none of my business). Just that I can see with my own eyes that sometimes the cure is worse than the problem. And Tierney makes a strong case (!) that trying to protect a few determined addicts like Rush Limbaugh from themselves is not a good enough reason to browbeat doctors and deny people who suffer real pain the drugs they need.
I would also add that this is the sort of government audits and disrespect for privacy rights that will only escalate if Roe v. Wade, or god forbid, Griswold v. Connecticut is overturned. I’ve heard horror stories of elderly people on their death beds screaming and crying in pain when they should be saying their goodbyes to loved ones because the law already meddles with the doctor’s judgement and puts unfair limits on the amount of pain medication doctors can prescribe.
15 Responses to “Stop the presses!”
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It sounds like Tierney has heard horror stories from a friend about the unnecessary prosecution of prescription drug users. Maybe someone with experience with OxyContin and the law. Let’s just call him Lush Rimbaugh.
What drives me nuts about a lot of conservatives is that they oppose assisted suicide laws on the grounds that they’re unnecessary, since with proper pain management nobody should be so miserable that they want to die. And then they deny people the drugs they need for proper pain management. At some point, I’d like the Bush administration just to come right out and say that they hate sick people. Because it’s certainly starting to seem that way.
The number one sin in society is to be weak. Weakness cannot be tolerated.
Ten bucks says Tierney has a friend or family member who needs Oxycontin. It’s amazing how liberal and open-minded asshats can suddenly be when it’s their ass on the line. cf. “pro-lifers” coming out in favor of stem-cell research.
Actually, y’all, since he identifies himself as libertarian, getting the government off doctors’ back is pretty consistent with his viewpoint. But he’s pretty inconsistent for a libertarian, so perhaps this is just a strange moment of clarity for him.
Sadly, the Pain as the 5th vital sign has not gotten around to enough physicians - in general, the GP’s that won’t refer their chronic pain patients to pain specialists. To make matters worse, the FDA still has not incentivized pharma companies who develop pain meds to develop abuse limiting formulations by allowing labeling/promotion to physicians to that effect (though I know for a fact at least one company is working on those types of formulations with a partner & a couple of small biotechs were trying, unsuccessfully, to develop other opioids that act peripherally w/o the CNS effects). On bright spot is the fact that about 4 years ago, the FDA finally started to acknowledge a class of users (real chronic pain patients legitimately using very high doses) as “aberrant users” instead of “abusers”; more recently, the DEA is decided it will review NDA submission data concurrently with the FDA.
In general, those who become addicted to and abuse the opioids do so with inappropriate use of extended release formulations - they crush, grind or otherwise adulterate them to get high and then we have people attacking pharma for creating these drugs (there are a lot of things to attack pharma for, this is not one of them) and creating these addicts (or someone who dies after first inappropriate use of them) instead of putting responsibility where it’s due. Case in point, palladone (a very potent once/day formulation of hydromorphone) was just pulled because of all the folks who died using it. ..it seems the people who died drank alcohol with the drug.
The DEA’s war on doctors is a travesty.
Not too many years ago, a friend of mine lay dying from breast cancer. As she writhed in agony, literally wailing because of the pain, her doctor refused to give her more morphine. Why? Because he’d already had several threatening visits from DEA because he wrote more pain-killer prescriptions than DEA guidelines allowed. Nevermind that his specialty was dealing with end-stage cancer patients.
Thus, in of protecting us from the evils of drugs are thousands sentenced to mortal agony.
If you want a real laugh, go back and look at the Congressional “debate” over whether to allow terminal cancer patients to be administered heroin. Marvel at such leading Democratic lights as Charley Rangel wondering “what kind of message does it send the children” if we allow dying people access to effective painkillers.
How can I put this delicately? Fuck you if you would have taken the morphine away from my dying mother.
But he’s pretty inconsistent for a libertarian
Exactly. He’s not really a libertarian. He’s just somebody who apes Libertarian philosophy when what they really mean is “the government shouldn’t make ME do anything that I want to do.”
My grandmother is 94 years old. She’s survived two heart-attacks and three cancers. For the past year, she’s eaten with the aid of a tube in her stomach. And yet, every month, she has to go and argue with her doctor to give her another prescription for sleeping pills, because he’s worried about their “addictiveness”.
I say, if you’ve made it past 80, you should get whatever drug you want, free, in the mail, every week.
UK doctors are like that too, mothworm; seriously irrational is the politest way of describing it. But the way your grandmother is being treated is particularly thoughtless and cruel, and I am really sorry.
UK doctors are like that too
Yeah, so are Canadian doctors. While my dad was waiting for surgery to fix a hernia, he had to outright scream at the doctors to get something more than freaking Tylenol 3’s.
What’s that saying about a libertarian being a conservative who wants to smoke dope?
I’m not saying it’s accurate, but doesn’t it describe 90% of self-identified libertarians fairly well?
What’s that saying about a libertarian being a conservative who wants to smoke dope?
or visit hookers.
Left or right…who cares. It all boils down not to what we say we would do in certain circumstances, but rather what we really do when that time comes. You say because of HIV you would never give mouth-to-mouth to someone in an accident and you label those who do as busybodies. But when faced with the real life and death situation I don’t think you really know what you would do…just what you think you would do.
The same with pain. It is great to say you should or should not have access to to certain medications and that sounds great. But what happens when you fall prey to bone cancer and the gut-wrenching pain (constant) that accompanies it? Laying there in pure mortal agony do you really think you would vote to do away with morpheine or any other opiate that might possible give you a few moments of relief? I think not.
Our country and our lawmakers need to practice more understanding and less condemnation.