all pm clinics are pill mills - a reply to and a commentary on the article, 'drug company...

8/4/2019 All PM Clinics Are Pill Mills - A Reply to and a Commentary on the Article, 'Drug Company Profiteering, Pill Mills and Thousands of Addicts- How Oxycontin Has Spr

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This article is a reply to and a commentary on the article, Drug Company

Profiteering, Pill Mills and Thousands of Addicts: How Oxycontin Has Spread

Through America by Kristin Gwinne; it appeared on Alternet at:

http://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering

%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america?page=entire

Pill Mills, some of which call themselves "pain management centers," are doctorsoffices that hand out powerful narcotics at a much higher rate than for strictly medicalreasons. Like drug dealers, they require patients to pay in cash and usually do notperform physical exams or require evidence of injury. They treat pain with pills only, andthey often give patients the option to choose their own medicines before directing them totheir (conspiring) pharmacy. In some cases, doctors operating pill mills have beenimprisoned for trafficking narcotics.

I really wish you people would figure this out! First, you need to know that the War OnDrugs is a war on the citizens of this country, not on inanimate substances, and most ofthe victims are legitimate pain-treating doctors and people in pain. Yes, addicts do go topain clinics, and theyre almost always turned down!

If a clinic isnt doing exams and/or demanding medical records and/or contact with aformer doctor, if they dont order more tests, especially in the case of new CPPs (ChronicPain Patients) who may not have had definitive testing done in other words, if a patientwalks in off the street, claims to hurt and with a few questions and answers walks out

with a prescription for a bunch of powerful opiates with no other demands for more testsor records made, THAT is a Pill Mill. If they can buy the pills there, thats anotherindicator, though not definitive. Doctors used to hand out medications, and it was decidedthat that should be the province of pharmacies. I had thought it was illegal save for a fewsample packets of medications. What happens most often is that undercover operativesfor the DEA or local police who were trained by doctors to fake pain will walk inclaiming a painful condition and reasonable-sounding circumstances as to why theyre atthis clinic now. The doctor will agree to continue the patients last script ONE TIME.Pain-treating doctors should see untreated pain as an emergency, but before hell writeanother prescription he demands an MRI or CT scan, an exam by a specialist for thatcondition (neurologist if its nerve damage, orthopedist or whatever). The patient may

walk out with the prescription, but unless he gets those tests its the lasttime hell get anymeds at that clinic. The DEA doesnt care it was an undercover operative who had noreal pain, the doctor gave him pills, so they and the DOJ attack with the full force of thegovernment.

Hes jailed as a flight risk, his clinic is closed and his patients are abandoned. Hisaccounts are frozen or confiscated, and civil forfeiture is begun against any property heowns before any conviction. He has no money to hire a lawyer, and the PD (Public
http://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america?page=entirehttp://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america?page=entirehttp://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america?page=entirehttp://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america?page=entirehttp://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america?page=entirehttp://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america?page=entire


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Defender) is either so overworked he meets the doctor for the first time on the day of thetrial, or all he has to offer is a plea-bargain that might lower the doctors sentence tofifteen years. Before the doctor really knows whats going on, the local papers and othernews have been blaring Pill Mill stories and pictures of the SWAT bust of his clinic.Hes forbidden to talk with news people, and his license has been (illegally) demanded by

the DEA. The doctor never gets the chance to get test results and figure out for himselfhes been scammed he just goes to jail for the remainder of his life, and the hundreds,maybe thousands (thanks to the DEA) of patients who depended on him for theprescriptions that gave them their lives back just lose out. And every time the DEAmakes a so-called Pill Mill bust, patients kill themselves. Usually then, the doctor isblamed for addicting the patient and is charged with murder.

You cannot imagine how a CPP lives excuse me, exists. The Medical Standard ofCare states that opiates are the gold standard treatment for pain, especially chronicpain. Despite the propaganda claims, theyre far safer than NSAIDs, which kill far morepeople every year than opiates do (more on that in a moment). Nonetheless CPPs are

forced to waste years, even decades taking various pills, usually low-dose opiates orhigh-dose NSAIDs designed for low-level acute (temporary) pain at best. These are verydangerous, almost always expensive and useless for high levels of pain. These patientsare forced to go through often-damaging physical therapy on the theory that Maybe itllwork this time, or I didnt see it done and I know this therapist hes very good at it!The profits need to be spread around in the medical community. Try exercising on twobroken legs while some ass tells you You just have to work through the pain! Itll getbetter! When it hasnt gotten better in twenty years. Expensive injections that hurt, oftencause more damage, are in the wrong place more than 90% of the time, can causearachnoiditis or worse, treatment after treatment is required, many repeated over and overdespite neverworking, and the patient has no choice! Theyre told to do it or get out.20,000 of those patients die every year of bleedout or other NSAID toxicity damage, andalmost that many die by their own hands, unable to tolerate the pain and its consequencesany longer.

There are 70 million Chronic Pain Patients (CPPS) in America, though some put thatnumber closer to 116 million, the vast majority of whom are untreated or undertreated.Chronic Pain is medically a disease in and of itself. The DEA just chooses not torecognize that. This article irresponsibly chooses to tell its readers that all pain clinicsare pill mills. They arent. They may have a concierge practice thats a legal, legitimateway to run a clinic. They are not constrained or gouged by Medicares refusal to paymore than a fraction of the cost of treating a patient or by its insane fines for minorinfractions and assumptions that simple clerical errors are intentional attempts to defraudthe government. There are many good reasons to run cash-at-the-time-of-service clinics.It cuts out a greedy middleman who can deny a patient treatment. And a doctor canalways choose to lower his fees for some people.

Regardless, because criminalizing CPPs and their doctors is so profitable, the DEA isntinterested in separating out the genuine pain patients from the addicts, the latter of whomactually constitute a tiny, tiny minority by comparison. The DEA only got onto this


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the DEA has made it too expensive and too dangerous. No matter how hard he tries tofollow DEA directives and requirements they have no legal right to make, the DEA canand does bust doctor after doctor, and if he stays in the field, theyll attack my doctor too.When he leaves the field, I may be left with no choice but to die. I almost made thatchoice last time, when my wife was dying and I simply couldnt care for myself, much

less her, the house and everything else. Actually we were a week away from it when Ifound a new local doctor who helped just enough that she didnt have to leave the houseshe was born and grew up in, and was able to live the last of her life there as she chose.

My weight, at six foot two, dropped from 210 lbs to 143, and I became verydeconditioned. Ive begun to recover a bit now, but Im uncertain about how far I cancome back from that kind of damage, and I cant keep it up. It would require higher dosesthan the DEA likes to see, and my doc is quitting anyway. Im a vet, a Baby Boomer, andI dont know if I can survive this time. I dont know that I wantto live through yetanother game of How much can he take before he snaps? The cruelty we face in ERsand clinics is beyond belief, no matter how many test results, corroborating doctors or

whatever else we have. The DEA is safe we dont shoot back. We have no high-powered, well-connected lawyers. Neither do our doctors. When the cops kick down the(open) doors of the clinics and drag half-dressed patients out of exam rooms, or holddiapered infants and mothers in the waiting rooms at gunpoint on the floor (its beendone), the local press is right there with full information already; the doctor had nowarning. The DEA steals they say confiscate the patients medical records (exceptthey never get them back, so other doctors have another excuse not to see them).

You and a jury - are not told of the government study or other studies that show that thevastmajority of pills on the street were stolen from pharmacies, hospitals, warehousesand places like that. Theyre never sold as prescriptions, and CPPs almost neversell theirmeds. They represent life again for those in pain as much as insulin does for a diabetic.No, if the DEA blames us, then they can look like heroes when they take down helplesspeople in pain and the doctors trying to help us. Pill Mills are called that because of thehigh numbers of patients they have and the relatively high doses required to treat mostchronic pain. Well, every time the cops bust a clinic, those patients have to gosomewhere, and usually they have to go a couple of states over. Doctors closer than thathave heard of the bust, and CPPs cant even get seen for diabetes or heart conditions(both most likely caused by untreated pain). But the DEA considers people traveling longdistances to see a doctor another indication of Drug Seeking Behavior, and a reason toat least investigate them.Even though they themselves cause the conditions that requireit! Nice setup, huh? And just what are we supposed to do? Thatanswer, at least, is clear:were supposed to die.

This article is yet another piece of tripe, a propaganda piece thats part of the DEAslatest reincarnation of the War On Drugs. Now that they can call allpain managementclinics Pill Mills, theyve hit the jackpot! And you, the poor deluded fools who refuseto read the truth, to look for it and find out whats really happening, are going to pay theprice along with those of us who are already paying. You are just one accident, one


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botched operation, one mistake mowing the lawn or lifting a little too much on laundryday or trash day away from being CPPs yourselves.

After that you enter a Twilight Zone where you have suddenly become a pariah like thelepers of long ago. No word you speak is anything but a lie after that to any doctor you

see - Its just what an addict wouldsay. Work is out of the question. The spouse yourewith now will (95% or more chance) leave, with the kids. (She doesnt want the kids tosee you like this). Youll lose your job, your car, your family, your home, your ability tosleep more than an hour at a time (at most) or in a day. Try reading this story from ourside of things for once. Look up Siobhan Reynolds, read what shes written, or better yetread her story. She was CP treatment advocate until she actually did her job and, withthe help of a Right-Wing judge, a vindictive Federal Prosecutor destroyed her and theorganization shed built to try to get pain patients the treatment her husband and so manyothers needed. Her husband died of untreated pain; her son has the same agonizingcongenital condition and faces the same death as he gets older. In destroying her anddenying her case, the law was simply ignored, or twisted out of recognition. The Grand

Jury process was perverted, as was the judges ability to seal information and silenceinvestigators or anyone else who wanted to read what had happened. Sorry folks; youcant read that, youre not allowed to know how your government is cheating you of yourhealth and your rights. Try looking up her organizations blog it is no longer an activistblog. Its just a bunch of people with a lot of pain trying to support each other long-distance with information, comforting words, whatever can be done over the Internet. Forno money; were all poor. The blog is the Pain Relief Network (which that idiot judgedidnt bother to remember when he mocked the blog and her in court). Its athttp://www.painreliefnetwork.org/forum/ Find out the truth before you end up where Iam, and have been for almost three decades. You wont like it here at all.

Ian

PS

Of course you could simply say (and most people do), Well, thats all just an addictsjustification for wanting opiates. If you ignore all the new science of treating pain with anatural pain medication that works better than anything else (its the same molecule thatyour own body makes for the purpose; a CPPs pain mitigation system is broken, just as adiabetics system for handling sugar is, and both need, from outside our own bodies, thesubstances that we normally make for ourselves), and discount the return of function,both mental and physical, then of course you can call us and treat as just another of the70-some million addicts that a civilizedcountry would call pain patients. Its not truethough; its cruel, deadly, and horribly wasteful. Together with law enforcements misuseof civil forfeiture, though, it pumps billions of dollars into the DEAs coffers, city andcounty agencys budgets, the private prison industry and on and on. We are, it seems, fartoo profitable as a poverty-stricken, suffering and slowly dying population of aged anddamaged veterans, former workers and others who are generally helpless to defendourselves, much less our physicians. The DEA, DOJ and other agencies have near-infinite resources with which to attack us, and they have the mind-bending power of


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former mainstream Media, which is now the largest propaganda organ any governmenthas ever had, with which to demonize us as drug-addled perverts and lying thieves. Evendoctors are vulnerable and actually believe, or they claim to believe, the lies about us andabout the only class of medications that can not only allow us to function, it cansometimes heal the nerve damage: opiates. As long as those agencies are permitted to

misuse civil forfeiture to steal property, savings and anything from the accused (notconvicted and often not even charged yet only suspected!) Pill Mill doctors wellcontinue to be a profitable resource for them. Since we perfectly match Dr. HenryKissingers useless eaters, our unending suffering does not matter. Were less thanhuman and we can no longer contribute the DEA makessure of it - so any sort ofsadistic medical and legal abuse is permitted against us, until it finally,finally kills us. Sofor my twenty-eight years of suffering, poverty, homelessness, my sons loss of achildhood with a father and everything else Ive been through as one of 70 million othersin the same terminal predicament, damn them, and damnyou and every know-it-all andignorant doctor, every careless article writer like Kristen Gwynne and all the rest whohelp to condemn us to this torture, for not even bothering to check for yourselves, to find

out how youre being lied to! An unknown number of you will be where I am someday,you who survive this long. If youre a doctor or, God forbid, a cop, youll be seen bycolleagues as traitors to your own kind; after that nothing you have to say will be listenedto. The rest of you will just be more addicted trash like the rest of us.

Welcome to The Alley.*

Ian MacLeodAugust 27, 2011Oregon

*From Death of the Humane Spirit by Ian MacLeod:

That bundle of rags in the corner of the alley used to be a factory worker, damaged forlack of safety laws or enforcement, the damage made permanent by lack of treatment,everything but breath itself gone, and that will go soon enough and that doesnt mattereither. Not anymore. He cant make more money for the wealthy, so ignore him. Thereare always more where he came from, and theres always a little more room in the alleys.They dont stay long, one way or another. Maybe this will be the time you wont have toworry about climbing back out. Youve fought hard, for a long, long time time thatcould never be measured in mere moments, or days, or on any device for measuring thepassing seconds. Its measured in pain, in loss, in mockery, in fruitless, heart-wrenchingeffort; its measured in loss, and each time you have less remaining to you that you canafford to lose. Maybe this will be the time you lose the last of it, and removing you fromthe alley will be someone elses worry. Sometimes you hope so. You dont particularlywant to die, but what you are doing isnt living; its barely existing.

Back to the alley. Sucker.


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You lose. Again. That. Is. Chronic pain. In a nutshell: no matter what kind of proof ofdamage or psychological stability or history of not abusing drugs or tests that show noaddictive personality problem, no matter that every test they can run shows that youreally should be in debilitating pain; no matter your lifetime of honesty and a fierceadherence to honor, or service to others, no matteranything -

YOU. LOSE.

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