The War on Legal
Painkillers
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and
Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003
Sen. Kerry
Owes 48 Million Pain Patients and Rush Limbaugh an Apology
In the wake of our and others' recent columns on overzealous prosecutors
jailing physicians for prescribing legal medications, radio star Rush Limbaugh
announced at the end of his broadcast today, Friday, Oct. 10, that he will
check into a rehab clinic to treat an addiction to pain-killing drugs.
Responding to a story published last week by the National Enquirer, he told
his millions of listeners "part of what you've heard and read in the past week
is correct."
"I am addicted to prescription pain medication," he said in his statement.
Limbaugh explained that he began taking prescription painkillers about five
or six years ago to ease pain following unsuccessful spinal surgery.
Now we learn that on the prior Thursday night some Democrats thought severe
pain was funny!
Media counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
(AAPS) issued the following statement in response to comments made by Sen.
John Kerry during the Democratic debate on Oct. 9, 2003:
"Sen. Kerry owes an apology to the more than 48 million Americans who
suffer chronic pain. Few of them would see the humor in his flippant remarks
about a desperate patient's attempts to relieve a devastating medical
condition – nor do we.
"Substitute 'mental retardation' or 'cancer' in his remarks, and the level
of outrage would be voluminous and loud. According to the audience reaction of
laughter, the Democratic party that 'felt our pain' under Bill Clinton now
finds it fodder for jokes.
"Courageous physicians are being prosecuted for prescribing legal pain
treatment. This 'war on drugs' has turned into a war on doctors and the legal
drugs they prescribe and the suffering patients who need the drugs to attempt
anything approaching a normal life. Patients are having difficulty finding
doctors to treat them as a result of misguided drug policy, law enforcement,
and overzealous prosecutions.
"The result of recent prosecutions of dozens of leading pain specialists is
that doctors are afraid to prescribe opioids, and patients can't get the drugs
they so desperately need. Physicians are being threatened, impoverished,
delicensed, and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of
relieving pain. And their patients have become the collateral damage in this
trumped-up war.
"Some patients require very large doses, sometimes literally hundreds of
pills in each prescription – a number that may seem alarming to people
unfamiliar with current treatment standards in pain management. Other patients
report that they have resorted to lying about being heroin addicts in order to
get pain medication at methadone clinics."
The situation has become so critical that AAPS has sent out a warning to
doctors:
"If you're thinking about getting into pain management using opioids as
appropriate – DON'T. Forget what you learned in medical school – drug agents
now set medical standards. Or if you do, first discuss the risks with your
family."
If this continues, pain patients will be back in the Dark Ages of 'pain
clinics' that basically told the patients they had to learn to 'live with the
pain' – except possibly if they had cancer and then they wouldn't have to live
with it for very long.
Prosecutors are hell-bent on targeting career-making, high-publicity cases
on the backs of patients and doctors. Recent actions show that prosecutors
have little concern about the trail of destruction left by their actions as
patients face crippling pain and gut-wrenching withdrawal.
If this continues, there won't be one doctor left willing to prescribe the
drugs that patients so desperately need.
And that will leave Rush Limbaugh and 48 million other patients who have
legitimate medical illnesses, injuries and disabilities seeking legal
medications in illegal ways. Perhaps they will call their lawyers, prosecutors
and judges to obtain prescriptions for legal pain medications.
Or perhaps they won't. Either way, the Democrats think pain is funny! And
either way we are heading for a painful showdown.
* * * * * *
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple-award-winning writer who
comments on medical-legal issues. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a former president
of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
