THE DEA'S WAR AGAINST PATIENTS PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #313 - Tuesday, 19 July 2005 We're not referring to the War On Patients where the DEA agents roll up on medical marijuana hospices all decked out in SWAT paramilitary gear and poke automatic rifles into the faces of bedridden cancer patients. No, it's the OTHER DEA war against otherwise law-abiding medical patients, where the DEA agents roll up on chronic pain patients who are simply trying to obtain needed pharms. And this war extends to law-abiding physicians who are deemed by the DEA to be prescribing either too many pain meds, or inappropriately prescibing them. Pain management doctors from across America have been begging the DEA for a set of minimum guidelines to help assure that they are more in compliance with government-mandated directives, but the DEA refuses to issue such guidelines. This week's TIME magazine contains excellent coverage about how the DEA is persecuting doctors. From Tuesday's NY Times comes an OPED by John Tierney that gives grim detail to how the DEA's ambigious policies trickle down to the state level and put individual patients at risk - highlighting Richard Paey of Florida who is currently doing 25 years for illegal possession of 28 Percocet tablets. Please consider writing a succint Letter to the Editor and sending it to TIME and/or The New York Times. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do US: Why Is The DEA Hounding This Doctor? http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1136/a06.html Contact: Letters to Time Magazine should not exceed 100 words for best chance of publication. US NY: OPED: Punishing Pain http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1138/a05.html Contact: The New York Times has a 150 word count limit on LTEs and letters sent must be exclusive to the NYTimes. Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ Or contact MAP Media Activism Facilitator Steve Heath for personal tips on how to write LTEs that get printed. And of course, you are welcome to join Steve and other LTE writing friends of MAP for one of our Media Activism Roundtables held in the DrugSense Virtual Conference Room. See http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm for all details on how you can participate in these important meeting of leading minds in reform. Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and speakers all that is needed) and also via text messaging. The Paltalk software is free and easy to download and install. The password for these meetings is PW: welcome-pal (all lower case) PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list () will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Prepared by: Stephen Heath, MAP Media Activism Facilitator =

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