You Can't Talk That

I have written about Siobhan Reynolds before. The short version: here is a woman whose speech against government policy is so dangerous that the government will not even allow us to find out what is so dangerous. All the court papers dealing with the charges against her have been sealed.
Jacob Sullum has the latest.

By speaking out in defense of a Kansas doctor and nurse accused of running a “pill mill,” pain treatment activist Siobhan Reynolds annoyed the federal prosecutor assigned to the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway was so angry that in April 2008 she sought a court order telling Reynolds to shut up. Concluding that such an order would be an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech, U.S. District Judge Monti Belot said no.

But by the time Belot sentenced the defendants, Stephen and Linda Schneider, last October, he was so irritated by Reynolds’ advocacy that he could not contain himself. He said he hoped the harsh sentences—three decades each—would “curtail or stop the activities of the Bozo the Clown outfit known as the Pain [Relief] Network, a ship of fools if there ever was one.”

Reynolds, who founded the Pain Relief Network (PRN) in 2003 to highlight the chilling effect of drug law enforcement on the practice of medicine, evidently has a talent for getting under the skin of people in power. But that is not a crime. By treating it as such, Treadway used grand jury secrecy to cloak an unconstitutional vendetta.

So here we have a sentence delivered not for the actual crime but to "stop the activities" of people not even associated with the crime. "Unconstitutional vendetta" sums it up nicely.

Here is a notice from PRN.

To: The Pain Relief Network Community
From: Siobhan Reynolds
Dec 29, 2010

The Members of the Board of Directors and I have decided to shut down PRN as an activist organization because pressure from the US Department of Justice has made it impossible for us to function. I have fought back against the attack on me and PRN but have received no redress in the federal courts; so, the board and I have concluded that we simply cannot continue.

It is important to note that PRN has been refused standing in federal court to sue the federal government in defense of the patients’ Constitutional rights; this, when the Sierra Club has been given leave to sue powerful entities on behalf of insects. Even after changing tactics by suing under the names of persons directly injured both materially and Constitutionally, the federal courts in the 9th Circuit denied standing to a doctor and a group of his oppressed patients; preventing them from suing the State of Washington for their dangerous and lawless attack on the rights and personal welfare of Washington doctors and patients.

It certainly appears that the legal deck is stacked against pain patients and doctors. Despite this, others will keep trying because so very much is at stake. A group of us may bring another action in the Western District of Washington in the near future; but exactly how that will be framed is not yet clear. In any event, the action will not be undertaken under the auspices of PRN.

People in pain are still being abused, neglected, and left to die by the entire system. Physicians brave enough to treat chronic pain continue to be intimidated and prosecuted. It breaks my heart that we have to stop, but there is simply no way forward for PRN.

My evil hope (no way around that) is that the people who support the Drug War see themselves, their children, their relatives, and friends suffer unimaginable pain from insufficient pain relief caused by the Drug War. When enough people are in enough pain we will end this stupidity.

The trouble is you have people like Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics giving illegal drugs to a sitting Senator (Joe McCarthy) to keep him out of the black market and potential scandal. There is one law for the little people and another law for the elect. And there is darned little that citizens can do about it directly because the "enforcers" are unelected.

H/T Instapundit

Pill Outbreak

Southern Ohio is in the midst of a public health emergency. There is a serious outbreak of pills in the area.

Nearly one in 10 babies were born addicted to drugs last year in southern Ohio's Scioto County. Rehab admissions for prescription painkiller addictions were five times the national average. In a rare step, the health commissioner declared a public health emergency, something usually reserved for disease outbreaks.

The culprits putting the rural county at the forefront of a burgeoning national problem are not only the people abusing the painkillers, officials say. They blame at least eight area "pill mills" — clinics or doctors that dole out prescription medications like OxyContin with little discretion. At least two health care providers are facing criminal charges.

"I would describe it as if a pharmaceutical atomic bomb went off," said Lisa Roberts, a nurse for the health department in Portsmouth, an Ohio River city of about 20,000 with falling population and high unemployment.

Health officials say nine of every 10 fatal drug overdoses in Scioto (pronounced sy-OH'-toh) County are caused by prescription drugs. Of those drug deaths, nearly two-thirds of the individuals did not have prescriptions, meaning they bought the drugs illegally or got them from friends or family.

Obviously since 2/3rds did not get their medications legally the "pill mills" are at fault.

There are other "pill mills" around the country that are getting attention.

By publicly defending Stephen and Linda Schneider, a Kansas doctor and nurse accused of running a “pill mill,” pain treatment activist Siobhan Reynolds irked the prosecutor assigned to the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway was so annoyed that in April 2008 she sought a court order telling Reynolds to shut up. Concluding that such an order would be an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech, U.S. District Judge Monti Belot said no.

But by the time Belot sentenced the Schneiders last month, he was so irritated by Reynolds’ advocacy on behalf of the couple that he could not contain himself. He said he hoped the harsh sentences—three decades each—would “curtail or stop the activities of the Bozo the Clown outfit known as the Pain [Relief] Network, a ship of fools if there ever was one.”

Reynolds, who founded the Pain Relief Network (PRN) in 2003 to highlight the chilling effect of drug law enforcement on the practice of medicine, evidently has a talent for getting under the skin of people in power. But that is not a crime. By treating it as such, Treadway has used grand jury secrecy to cloak an unconstitutional vendetta.

The previous link leads to the PRN in case you want to learn more.

Of course I have written about the war on pain patients before. Just another advantage of having a war on pain relievers. What is the new motto in American jurisprudence? "Better 10,000 in pain than one additional drug abuser." You have to look at this in a positive light though.If you are in pain there is a thriving black market if you can afford it.

Here is a book that addresses current policy:

Pain Control and Drug Policy: A Time for Change

Here are some short reviews:

"A captivating and a powerfully expressed condemnation of the mindless folly of drug policy. Its great strength is the clarity of thought and power of expression." Paul O'Mahony Ph.D., Criminologist, Trinity College, Dublin.
--Book Review

"A dispassionate and multifaceted analysis of the harmful effects of drug policy in the US and abroad [that calls for] re-legalizing all illicit drugs." Jeffrey A. Miron, Ph.D., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA --Book Review

"Faguet's book is the latest classic in a growing literature on the divisive and counterproductive nature of drug wars. In passionate terms, he describes the history and development of current legislation and reveals that, far from protecting society, current drug policy undermines the fragile social, political, and legal infrastructures of producer countries and penalizes millions of petty offenders and pain sufferers in consumer countries. Strongly argued and uncompromising, this is essential reading for anyone with an open-mind, and an interest in drugs and drug legislation." --John B.Davies BA., Ph.D., C.Psychol., FBPsS., FRSM, Professor of Psychology, Director, Centre for Applied Social Psychology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

I have to agree with the reviews. A well working prohibition (yeah a logical prohibition - a novel idea) should keep drugs from those who supposedly don't need them and get them (through legal markets) to people who do. Instead our policies insure pretty much the opposite. Not to mention that for 30 years it has been considerably easier for kids to get an illegal drug than to get a legal beer according to government surveys. What is the point of that?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Demons Vs Imps

The Guardian - UK has an editorial up on the failure of the drug war.

The political fixation on drugs prohibition really took hold in the west in the 1960s as much from moral panic about a subversive counterculture as from analysis of the harm caused by particular drugs.

Since then, the law has tried to maintain a distinction between reputable and disreputable substances that neither users nor medical research recognise. Scientific attempts to classify drugs in terms of the harm they do – to the body and society – routinely place tobacco and alcohol ahead of cannabis and ecstasy. The point is not that the wrong drugs are banned, but that the law is nonsense to anyone with real knowledge of the substances involved.

One point of general agreement is that heroin is the big problem.

Ah. The heroin demon vs the marijuana imp. Progress.

But if you take out superstition all you have left is that "People take pain relievers to relieve pain. The stronger the pain the stronger the pain reliever required."

It pains me to see anti-prohibitionists still mired in superstition. I may have to seek pain relief.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

The Drug War Is A War On You

Here are some other videos in the series.

This one is especially heart wrenching:
Unable To Help - the Good Juice

Love, Death, and the War On Drugs:
I'm Not A Good Deal

These videos were prompted by a comment at Who Pays? by Ms. Cris Ericson.

(1) The Vermont Board of Medical Practice has raised the cost to patients in Vermont by forcing them to go to HMO's and the Vermont Board of Medical Practice has done this by driving family practice doctors out; and it is more expensive because the doctors who are allowed to stay in business are required to send chronic pain patients to specialty clinics that force patients to sign "contracts" and will not treat them if they dont'; and these "contracts" force patients to submit to humiliating and demeaning criminal probation procedures of drug urine testing the patients for illegal drugs, for which the doctors have no search warrants and no private right of action to charge these innocent disabled patients with a crime.

So, the COST of medical practice in Vermont goes higher and higher by invention of this type of specialty clinic and the associated UNNECESSARY TESTING!

Vermont News

2nd story: Vermont Board of Medical Practice Criminalizes Prescription Painkillers!

The Vermont News! website directly links to the Vermont Board of Medical Practice website where, if you search "actions" and click on 2009 and scroll down to In re Mitchel R. Miller, M.D.,
you will see that one of the filed documents is by Phil Ciotti, INVESTIGATOR, who claims that he told a patient THE STREET VALUE OF HER PRESCRIPTIONS, and allegedly, because he abused her by scaring her and frightening her, she allegedly agreed to give up taking prescription painkillers.

But for the fact that the Investigator for the Vermont Board of Medical Practice allegedly threatened and terrified a patient BY TELLING HER THE STREET VALUE OF HER PRESCRIPTIONS, she would not have agreed to stop taking them.

ISN'T THIS CRIMINAL INTIMIDATION?

Yes it is.

Think of what it will be like when the government is 100% in control of medicine.

You can read more stories about the War On People in Pain at Pain Relief Network.

And of course I have written extensively on the subject. It is my belief - backed up by facts - that addicts are in chronic pain and that pain is not yet recognized by the medical profession. It has happened before with fibromyalgia. At one time fibromyalgia patients were treated by the medical profession as common addicts. No longer.

The Pain In The Brain

Addiction Is A Genetic Disease

Is Addiction Real?

Heroin

PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System

Is your pain legal?

And we want to hand the medical profession over to more ENFORCERS with guns? Why?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

So Much Pain

I was reading the reviews of Cracked: Life on the Edge in a Rehab Clinic and came across this bit from a review.

Coming from a family of alcoholics, I felt one of the most important points Dr. Drew stresses is compassion. An addict/alcoholic is in so much pain, which is hard to understand, ...

Now that is mostly about chronic alcohol users. However, I think it fits the pattern of most chronic drug users. People chronically take pain medication because they have chronic pain. And what is the western medicine attitude towards pain? If you can't fix it you can at least medicate it. Keep the patient comfortable. And that is usually the case. Except for those who self medicate. In many cases they are denied pain medication even for "acceptable" pain.

I was writing about this four years ago in Addiction or Self Medication?. The whole point of the drug war is insane. Making war on pain relief. Well I wrote about that too in The Pain Enforcement Administration and in Is Your Pain Legal?. Because you can't make war on pain relievers without harming those whose job it is to provide pain relief. Or those individuals needing pain relievers for unusual periods or in unusual quantities or for undiagnosed pain.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

The Justice Department is at it again. Protecting us from unscrupulous doctors. The kind that prescribe too much pain medication for those in pain.

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 crushing fashion to Haysville, Kansas, last month. Now, a popular pain management physician and his nurse wife are being held without bond and more than a thousand patients at his clinic are without a doctor, but the US Attorney and the Kansas Board of Healing Arts say they are protecting the public health.

It all started December 20, when federal agents arrested Dr. Stephen Schneider, operator of the Schneider Medical Clinic, and his wife and business manager, Linda, on a 34-count indictment charging them with operating a "pill mill" at their clinic. The indictment charges that Schneider and his assistants "unlawfully" wrote prescriptions for narcotic pain relievers, that at least 56 of Schneiders' patients died of drug overdoses between 2002 and 2007, and that Schneider and his assistants prescribed pain relievers "outside the course of usual medical practice and not for legitimate medical purpose."

In their press release announcing the arrests, federal prosecutors also said that four patients died "as a direct result of Schneider's actions," but the indictment does not charge Schneider or anyone else with murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide. In all four deaths, the patients died of drug overdoses, with prosecutors claiming Schneider ignored signs they were becoming addicted to the drugs or abusing them.

Let me see if I get this. You are in pain. You ask for medical help. When you find you can't control your drug use it is your doctor's fault. So what is the doctor supposed to do? Make you come to his office daily for your required dose? And the doctor is supposed to watch for signs? What is wrong with the patient watching for signs and communicating with the doctor?

Ah, but it gets better. Siobhan Reynolds of the Pain Relief Network is quoted saying:

The root of the problem, said Reynolds, is the Controlled Substances Act, under which the Justice Department determines what constitutes proper medical practice and what doesn't. "Under the act, the exchange of money for drugs is presumptively illegal, and doctors have to show they are doing medicine in an 'authorized fashion' approved by the Justice Department. Under the act, doctors are effectively presumed guilty until proven innocent. It's backwards, and it helps explain why it is so difficult to win these cases," she said.

The Pain Relief Network will shortly bring a federal lawsuit challenging the Controlled Substance Act, Reynolds said. "The act is profoundly unconstitutional and unlawful. It reverses the presumption of innocence, and we think we can win that challenge, even if we have to go to the Supreme Court."

While the network had vowed to file the lawsuit last month, it hasn't happened yet. That's because the network has been too busy putting out fires in Kansas, she said, adding that the lawsuit will be filed soon.

Meanwhile, Dr. Schneider and his wife remain jailed without bond at the request of federal prosecutors pending a first court date later this month. His patients are now scrambling to find replacement doctors with little success, especially now that other local doctors see what could await them if they apply aggressive opioid pain management treatments. And a chill as cold as the February wind is settling in over pain treatment on the Kansas plains.

The difficulty is that everyone responds to pain and drugs differently. Some require large amounts of drugs for small amounts of pain and others require small amounts of drugs for large amounts of pain. How in the heck can the Justice Dept. decide which is which? Are they licensed to practice medicine?

H/T Stop The Drug War

Cross Posted at Classical Values

New Clinical Tests Positive For Pain Medication

What do you know. We have a new drug avaiilable for kinds of pain that were previously difficult to treat.

Ever since California and other states began passing medical marijuana laws in 1996, the federal government has claimed that -- as a 2003 White House press release put it -- "research has not demonstrated that smoked marijuana is safe and effective medicine." A new study, just published in the journal Neurology, definitively refutes that claim and underlines the urgent need for the federal government to change its prohibitionist policies.

The study, conducted by Dr. Donald Abrams of the University of California at San Francisco, found marijuana to be safe and effective at treating peripheral neuropathy, which causes great suffering to HIV/AIDS patients. This type of extreme pain, which is caused by damage to the nerves, can make patients feel like their feet and hands are on fire, or being stabbed with a knife. Similar pain is seen in a number of other illnesses, including multiple sclerosis and diabetes, and cannot be treated effectively with conventional pain medications. Standard pain medicines -- even addictive, dangerous narcotics -- have little effect on this type of pain.

Marijuana doesn't cure neuropathy, but in the UCSF study marijuana was clearly shown to give relief. In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (the design that's considered the "gold standard" of medical research), a majority of patients had a greater than 30 percent reduction in pain after smoking marijuana. For many, that level of relief means having a bearable quality of life.

Well I guess the drug is not really new. It does confirm the anecdotal evidence we have from diabetes sufferers and people with multiple sclerosis.