Pubdate: Wed, 06 Dec 2006
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2006 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Author: Karen P. Tandy, Special to the Sentinel,
administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration. She wrote this commentary for the Orlando Sentinel.
Note: Rarely prints out-of-state LTEs.

DOCTOR OR DEALER?

To find new patients, Dr. Freddie Williams, a general practitioner in 
Panama City in the Florida Panhandle, would send two recruiters, one 
of whom was a heroin addict, searching for people looking for easy 
prescription drugs -- and frequently found them in bars. The 
recruiters were paid in OxyContin prescriptions, and the new 
"patients" received practically limitless amounts of high potency 
OxyContin. The OxyContin was not for pain, nor any other medicinal 
purpose, but simply for abuse. Patients were injecting and snorting 
it for the heroin-like high it gave.

Williams created addicts. Patients were overdosing. Parents called 
his practice pleading for him not to give their children any more 
drugs. He did anyway. Williams was even demanding sex in exchange for 
prescriptions.

He was diverting so many OxyContin pills to abusers and traffickers 
that after Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents and our 
partners arrested him, the street price of OxyContin nearly doubled 
in the area because of the significantly diminished availability of 
OxyContin. Similarly, pharmacy burglaries and patients seeking 
treatment increased.

A jury convicted Williams on 94 counts of conspiracy to distribute 
controlled substances and health-care fraud, among other violations, 
and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Fortunately, these kinds of criminal doctors are few and far between. 
In any given year, including 2005, fewer than one in every 10,000 
physicians in the United States -- less than 0.01 percent-loses their 
authority to prescribe controlled substances based on a DEA investigation.

These few doctors cause grave harm and contribute to the alarming 
prescription-drug-abuse problem in our country. Prescription 
controlled substances are the second most abused type of drugs -- 
behind only marijuana. Nearly one out of every 10 high-school seniors 
abuses dangerous painkillers.

The addictions these drugs cause are rapidly swelling the number of 
Americans seeking treatment -- 63,000 at last count. The consequences 
can turn deadly as illustrated by the deaths of Jason Surks of New 
Jersey and Ryan Haight of California, who died at ages 19 and 18 
after overdosing on prescription narcotics they obtained through the 
Internet. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 
Jason and Ryan are part of a disturbing trend: Prescription 
painkillers now cause more drug-overdose deaths than cocaine and 
heroin, combined.

It is DEA's job to enforce the laws of this nation to ensure 
pharmaceutical narcotics and other controlled drugs are used only for 
the health and welfare of the public. Prescription drugs help 
millions of Americans every day, but when these drugs harm citizens' 
health, feed addictions, ruin innocent lives and put more dangerous 
substances in our neighborhoods, the DEA must target that diversion 
and those responsible.

In September, the DEA announced three steps to ensure that people who 
medically need drugs get them, and that those who are diverting them, 
don't. We issued a proposed rule that will make it easier for 
patients with chronic pain or other chronic conditions to avoid 
multiple trips to a physician. The DEA also released a 
first-of-its-kind pain statement to give the medical community the 
information they requested on prescribing and dispensing controlled 
substances to treat pain. Finally, DEA launched a new page on our Web 
site (www.dea.gov) to provide everyone with the facts on DEA cases 
against the small number of doctors who violate federal drug laws.

There is much debate within the medical community about how chronic 
pain should be treated, how aggressively and with what medications. 
The DEA doesn't enter into that debate except to ensure the drugs 
aren't being diverted for illegal purposes as we are required to do 
by federal law. Doctors need to practice medicine as they have been 
trained to do and as they are sworn to do: to help their patients. 
The DEA in turn will do what we are sworn to do: to protect the 
American public by putting dealers like Williams out of business.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine