Cops Become Drugstore Cowboys in Vermont; 4th Amendment Officially Dead

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Maia Szalavitz
Cops Become Drugstore Cowboys in Vermont; 4th Amendment Officially Dead
Posted December 4, 2007 | 11:15 AM (EST)


Most politicians support measures like so-called "prescription monitoring programs" mindlessly, figuring that if allowing the government access to medical records of scummy drug addicts will reduce their numbers, all is good.

But when state police start entering pharmacies to get full prescribing records of anyone taking a Schedule II controlled substance like Oxycontin-- as the Green Mountain Daily blog says is now happening in Vermont-- perhaps they'll wake up and smell the sickly odor of the death of the 4th Amendment. In the eyes of the police, every pain patient-- and consider that some 30% of the population suffers some form of chronic pain-- is junky slime.

Says Siobhan Reynolds, founder of the indispensable Pain Relief Network, "We saw from the beginning of the government's shift to the "war on prescription drug abuse" that this was where this whole thing was headed. Until now, the systematic violation of patient's 4th Amendment rights was more or less hidden from public view. Now, the Vermont police have pulled back the veil for all of us to see the vicious witch hunt being perpetrated against people unfortunate enough to require Controlled Substances for the treatment of serious illness."

Just contemplate for a moment how much information your complete prescription records give to the police. From this data, the cops can tell if you suffer depression, HIV, anxiety, herpes, impotence, cancer and many other disorders many people prefer not to broadcast. If there is any information that should be protected from warrantless fishing expeditions, it's gotta be your pharmacy records. If the supposed health care privacy act HIPAA is anything more than a paperwork tree-killing bonanza, it must prohibit this ridiculous type of data mining. But Vermont pharmacists are being told that it doesn't.

Even politicians have gotta wonder: do I really want the state looking at my Viagra script? ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/cops-become-drugstore-cow_b_75261.html

[Richard Steele]

1. Grrrecommended

[LiberalFighter]

2. Make it difficult for the police

If you live on border get your prescription filled in a different state.

[greiner3]

18. Many states only allow prescriptions written in the state;

To be filled by that state. Example; I live in Ohio and take 5 prescription drugs. I take my little scripts and go to, say PA, because they have cheaper drugs. I would bet that the mindless pill pushers behind the counter at Walgreen's would tell me that I need to get those filled in Ohio. Either that or I would need to get another prescription written by a Dr who sells pills in PA. At least that's my take on the present situation in prescription pill land.

[LiberalFighter]

29. What would be the difference receiving prescriptions required by insurance company from out of state

[Wizard777]

33. Prescription are not within the jurisdiction of the states. The fed controls perscriptions. n/t

[mopinko]

3. not only privacy- proper medical treatment.

as someone who would cost them a few hours to review, my big worry is that this crap is already making it hard to get adequate pain treatment. how much worse can it get? are us sickos gonna start being told to rely on yoga and hot baths? and meditate on the good old days when you could still get vicodin?

[Recursion]

5. I wonder how much $$ Purdue Pharma made off actual addicts though?

Yet another of pharma's dirty little secrets. I'm sure they'd rather have actual pain sufferers like you turn to acupuncture (which, incidentally, works well for some pain, though I'm sure you're sick of advice...) so that you wouldn't demand results and safety from them and they could keep peddling their wares to prescription-hoppers.

[mopinko]

8. i am not an addict or a prescription hopper, whatever that is.

do you have any idea how insulting your post is?

[Recursion]

14. Ummm... my point was you are *not* an addict

From the sound of your original post, you're on prescriptions for pretty serious conditions.

You're not who they make money off of. Addicts are.

[flashl]

10. Oxycontin destruction of mostly rural communities, at first, and the load

it creates for police departments have been reported for years, it just fell on deaf ears.

[liberalhistorian]

12. Excuse me, but Oxycontin has been a

godsend for many people suffering intense, chronic pain. The only reason it's a "burden" for police departments is because of the very drug war against it and against those who desperately need it to be able to get through the day without collapsing from pain.

[flashl]

13. Excused me but oxycotin has been a plague on communities

Purdue Feels the Pain of OxyContin Felony, Fine

Executives at Purdue Pharma are opening their own wallets and paying out large wads of cash to settle charges that they "misbranded" painkiller OxyContin--as part of a hefty plea agreement that may signal the courts' mounting frustration with sketchy marketing practices by Big Pharma.

Purdue will pay upwards of $600 million--one of the largest fines ever slapped on a drug maker--to resolve felony charges that they encouraged sales reps to fraudulently market OxyContin (oxycodone) as less addictive than other pain medications.

...

"Even in the face of warnings from healthcare professionals, the media, and members of its own sales force...Purdue, under the leadership of its top executives, continued to push a fraudulent marketing campaign," said US Attorney John Brownlee in a statement. "In the process, scores died as a result of OxyContin abuse, and an even greater number became addicted."

---

google oxycotin+addiction to get the picture

[nashville_brook]

25. as long as there's "good" patients and "bad" patients, ALL patients suffer

i'm a chronic pain patient and finding a doctor who will treat pain is like finding a desert rat in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. as far as family practitioners are concerned ALL pain patients are "drug seekers." they are under too much scrutiny from their profession to deal with chronic pain patients.

"pharma's secret" is that these witch hunts bludgeon pain patients out of the regular health care system where their personal doctors care for their pain as part of their total health. instead, doctors push pain patients into "pain clinics" where only the pain is treated by second-rate psuedo-doctors. if we really cared about this, we'd demand that primary practitioners get back into the business of treating pain and put these pain clinics out of business.

it's not the patients who are "good" and "bad." when you say "prescription hopper" you smear everyone who deals with pain on a daily basis. if you have chronic pain you are a "prescription hopper" by definition. you have to try everything and anything to find what works. you have to find a doctor willing to treat you. everyday is a struggle.

here's my "dirty little secret" -- the reason i have chronic pain and WILL HAVE chronic pain for the rest of my life, is that i was "stupid enough" to go to an ER with two herniated discs. i threw them out rehabbing the family house in Florida. i was working on the house alone and had never had this kind of pain before. i drove myself to the ER where i was treated as a drug seeker. without so much as a cursory exam, i got nothing but sarcasm and animosity from the doc on call. i had never been in an ER before, and had no idea how to deal with this man. alone and terrified, i was in so much pain i couldn't stand up or walk. driving my little stick shift car to the ER was an heroic act.

the doc, thinking i was a drug seeker, said the ONLY thing he could do was give me an epidural and admit me. i wanted to be admitted b/c that would give my husband time to get on a plane and come take care of me. and i wanted to be out of the pain, so i saw no problem with his solution. he was flabbergasted. after putting me in the restraining chair he takes out the epidural needle, walks in front of the chair and waves the giant needle in front of me like a madman -- "you want THIS in your back??? it's gonna HUUUUURT!! are you SUUUURE you want this giant needle? look how big it is!!"

i was horrified. the needle was unwrapped, and if i had been in my right mind (i.e. not in excruciating pain) i would have walked out (if i could walk). it didn't seem sanitary and i imagined that surely that wasn't the needle he was getting ready to use.

it was. and i got a staph infection in my spine which nearly killed me. on top of the infection )which went undiagnosed for months) i got blood clots and my liver became inflamed trying to fend off the systemic infection. i spent three months total in hospitals.

and that was just the beginning of having to deal with our "fuck you and your pain" culture.

so, when i see people reacting to news like with the old "good patient, bad patient" meme, i feel i have to speak up. this way of thinking hurts everyone with a body that is likely to break. everyone is going to have pain at some point in their life, and when you're SICK, really SICK and hurting and terrified, you're going to have to deal with the culture you've helped to create. YOU are going to be "the drug seeker." you are going to be the "bad patient."

[mopinko]

26. thank you for taking the time to explain this.

i made a comment above but did not have the time to lay all this out. people do not understand what it is like to be dependent not just on the drugs, but on the DOCTORS!! my doc's prescription pad stands between me and hell. right now i am pissed off at him, and thinking about this issue in particular- if if fire this guy, who works for me but sure doesn't see it that way, i will be branded as a head case and a drug seeker, and i will never be taken seriously by another doctor. he is my 4th rheumatologist. despite having about every test imaginable in the last 6 years, no one can add up all the bizarre findings and give what i wrong with me a name. so, in the way that docs think of you as your disease- a diabetic, a cancer, etc- i am chronic pain.
so, standing as i am on the borderline of "respectability" i am thinking about this. can i get by on otc pain meds? can i get ambiens on the corner? will i need to drink more beer? or none at all? if i could get the pills without him, would i tell him to kiss my ass? (my heart says "in one beat", my brains says "someday he might have an answer.")
it was exactly the word prescription hoppers that i objected to and i hope the op has been schooled here.

[nashville_brook]

27. in my experience, if you have something that defies diagnosis, they want you off their back

no one figured i had a staph infection in my spine and was summarily dismissed from two different offices right off the bat -- in the aftermath of the chronic pain the number is much higher. what i was presenting was extreme malaise (couldn't hold my head up), nausea, leg pain, jaundice, fever. i couldn't walk on my own and needed a wheelchair to negotiate the doctor's office, and she was dismissing me as having a flu bug. i was yellow like lisa simpson at this point.

so, you've got a yellow, puking, wheelchair-bound patient in your office and you tell her that she's prolly had some bad sushi. wtf. talk about leaps of reason. it took another two weeks to diagnose the DVTs in my leg. then, i supposedly had airplane syndrome -- even tho i'd not been on an airplane in years. i didn't fit in her conceptual framework of illness and she wouldn't or couldn't take the time to figure out what was really wrong with me.

i'm a marketing schlub by trade. if i slack thru jobs the result is crappy advertising. when a doctor slacks thru their job, people die. the same problem is the root -- lack of attention and creativity. but guess what? that makes me a "difficult" patient b/c i have the gall to have a difficult and serious illness (caused by another slacker doc, btw).

when i watched Sicko -- the part where we met the docs in the UK -- i was hit with the notion that it must be terribly difficult to be a doc in the US. at every stroke your job is being thwarted. you can't prescribe according to your experience and education without a cop or your peers looking over your shoulder. you can't spend more than 9 minutes per patient or else the management company will call you to the carpet. you have to clear treatments with bean-counters. who in their right mind would be a doctor in the US under these conditions? imagine how soul-crushing it must be to the people who actually went into the profession to HEAL PEOPLE.

[Recursion]

34. It's hard to deny that there are people who abuse prescription painkillers...

My point was that Purdue (and Merck, and the rest of the unholy brigade) make a lot of money off of those people, and seem to prefer them as customers to people like you who actually need to treat chronic pain.

Then again, anybody who is medicating is doing it for a reason; people take cocaine for the same reason that richer people take Adderall, and someone abusing Oxycontin has bad feelings he or she wants to make go away. I think my point stands that pharma wants addicts more than they want patients, though.

[nashville_brook]

35. how do you tell the difference btwn an "abuser" and a "user" -- i'll tell you how it's done

EVERYONE is seen as a drug seeker to doctors who hope to keep their jobs.

now, lets say that we got the government out of the way of doctors. lets say that the "debate" about drug abuse was geared toward harm reduction and addiction as a health care issue -- things would be different. people with chronic pain would be able to form meaningful, beneficiary relationships with their health care providers and doctors would be able to practice medicine.

since the government and the business of medicine has power over patients and doctors, we are at a severe disadvantage. couple that with successful manipulation of public opinion to butt in to the doctor-patient relationship, and we have a basically fascist health care system. i don't want the editorial board of my local newspaper having a say in my pain therapy. i don't want every person with a keyboard and an internet connection to be standing between me and a pain-free life. but that's the way it is. every word spoken against the rural oxycontin bugaboo is another brick in the wall between me and my doctor and the fantasy of living without pain.

[Recursion]

4. Why did the US Congress pass legislation "controlling" substances?

And which of their enumerated powers allows this? Interstate commerce of them, sure. Constituting regulatory boards for their manufacture and import, sure. But actually controlling access to substances? Is this really something we want them doing?

What bothers me most is that it's snuck through in the tax code. As my rhetorical questions allude to, Congress can't control substances, so they have to require tax stamps which they then refuse to issue except for certain drugs to certain companies. If we want to have drug laws, pass a damn amendment like we did with alcohol...

[flashl]

17. My understanding is

while Congress was creating draconian sentencing laws that adversely impact African Americans, true drug usage statistics was introduced. The façade of getting tough on crime and sending African Americans to jail and prisons in large numbers suddenly became difficult.

At the time, high usage drug users getting a pass were in the medical community. To create an “appearance” of equity, controls for the medical community were set in the ability to prescribe drugs while drug usage of African American mandated prison sentencing.

The results?

Millions of African Americans are trapped in the prison industrial complex and their neighborhoods are ravaged from the drug economy.

Controls on prescription pain medication leave patients WITH REAL NEEDS suffering in pain while illicit use and profiting from prescription medications in the medical community continues.

It’s a lose-lose scenario.

[Joanne98]

6. I thought Vermont was a liberal state?

[Cha]

9. Yeah, what's up

with this happening in "Impeach The Bastard" Vermont?

[Ilsa]

7. And people have to wonder why patients want to go to Canada and Mexico

to get their scripts? Money is one thing, but privacy means as much to many people.

[NashVegas]

11. I Had Someone Steal Hydrocodone From My Medicine Cabinet

I had about 3/4 or more of a bottle left over from a day surgery. Workmen had to come to my apartment to lay down a floor; I didn't discover the pills went missing until several months later, when I was going to flush them, anyway.

I don't support what the above law is doing; I don't support the laws that have people registering to buy over-the-counter cold medicines.

But I do understand why those laws are there. Addiction makes you do some pretty fucked up things.

[knitter4democracy]

21. In our area, it sells for $10 a pill on the street.

Hubby's had patients tell him that. He has to keep an eye on refills.

[L0oniX]

15. Silly war pigs.

[Selatius]

16. The 4th Amendment has been dying since the War on Drugs began.

This is just the latest encroachment upon the original intent of the 4th Amendment.

[Echo In Light]

23. Precisely ... and the American populace buckles like a belt as usual

[Romulox]

19. They came first for the potheads, and I did not speak up because I was not a pothead...

Are we winning the War on Drugs yet? :eyes:

[knitter4democracy]

20. In Michigan, all of those scrips go to the state anyway.

In order to write a prescription for a controlled substance, you have to use a special pad that makes a carbon copy for the state. The doctor's practice then sends those into the state--if they don't, the doctor can lose his state medical license.

Hubby had a patient once change her paper scrip (added a zero or something like that). The DA was able to get the carbon copy from the state to show she'd doctored her copy (well, it was obvious enough for the pharmacist to call Hubby and ask him about it and then call it in, too). She pled out before the trial.

[porphyrian]

22. Police states are for your protection.

Now forget everything you just heard and go back to sleep.

[dysfunctional press]

24. being on narcotic meds for chronic pain is a pain in the ass...

i have a disabling and painful spinal condition known as ankylosing spondylitis- there's no real cure, you pretty much just treat the pain, adjust your diet and exercise.

i started out on oxycontin- but that was when i had insurance. when i lost my insurance it became prohibitively expensive, so my doctor put me on methadone. i currently take 60mg/daily, and a month's supply costs $35.00

the thing that makes it a pain in the ass is the hurdle you have to jump through every month- the prescription MUST be handwritten EVERY month- no refills are allowed, and the doctor cannot call it in to the pharmacy. and- once the prescription has been written, it must be filled within 72 hours, or it's invalid. plus- not a lot of pharmacies stock the medication, but luckily i live in an area with a lot of 24-hour chain pharmacies, and they generally have it in stock. and since it comes in 10mg tabs, 60mg/day means 180 pills every month.

[DangerDave921]

30. I hear you on chronic pain

I have psoriatic arthritis (similar to rheumatoid) that hit me around age 37. Totally sucks having to deal with achy joints all the time, hands hurting, etc. I'm on prednisone (low dose) and methotrexate.

Have you tried the gin-soaked raisin trick? I've never been able to bring myself to try it, but some swear it works.

Good luck to you!

[dysfunctional press]

31. my condition is similar to rheumatoid arthritis as well...

and went un/mis-diagnosed until it manifested itself in my mid-30's. until then, the docs pretty much blamed the pain on my construction job and "mild arthritis". by afe 38 i was on total permanent disability from social security.

i've gone through a range of medications, and currently i'm also on prednisone- alternate-day therapy- you start with large doses, and then taper off to 10mg every other day- which is where i'm at. plus the methadone for chronic pain, and vicoprofen for migraines, flexeril for muscle tightness, ibuprofen for general inflammation at night, lunesta or trazedone when i can't sleep, and bunches of weed for a little bit of everything. the gin-soaked raisin trick is something i'm not familiar with...? but because of the methadone i haven't had any alcohol for going on 7 years now(and boy, did i pick the wrong administration to give up drinking...)
the rheumetologists all seem eager to get me on enbrel, but when i researched it, i found that i wasn't all that interested in trying it, especially due to the side-effects and possible side-effects. i'm comfortable enough with the meds i have for now. i just wish that there was something that could be done about my OTHER malady, especially this time of year- raynaud's syndrome.

as for psoriatic arthritis- have you done much research yourself on the web?

i researched mine, found a website w/message board for afflictees, and through that, was turned onto some research by a doctor in england that specializes in AS, and found out about a direct correlation with diet- because of my genetic makeup, my body is allergic to dietary starch. btw- the guy who has my condition and introduced me to the british doctor(literally- he paid to fly him over for a seminar in san antonio for web members of the AS message board) is a friend of dick cheney who works for haliburton and has since moved to dubai.

[DangerDave921]

36. Sorry for your pain

Sounds like you have it tough. I have achy joints, but can still run around with the kids and do the elliptical machine at the gym. I even play tennis once in a while although the impact is not fun on my hands. And my guitar playing has taken a back seat because the fingers hurt too much. I guess I could complain further, but there's no help in that!

The gin-soaked raisin trick is an Internet favorite, presumably first mentioned by Paul Harvey years ago on his radio program. You take a box of golden raisins (must be golden) and soak them in gin to cover for a week or two. Then each day, you eat 9 raisins. That's it. It's never been proven by the FDA, but some folks swear by it to alleviate arthritis pain. Never tried it myself.


Good luck to you!

[DangerDave921]

28. question

Do the police need a search warrant to access your records? Or is it simply the fact that you're using pain meds that allows them access? If it's the latter, that is insane. If the police still have to establish probable cause for you specifically, that's another matter that warrants further investigation.

Reminds me of a few years ago when police were monitoring gardening supply shops for people who bought grow-lamps. They believed that was probable cause to search your house because you could be growing the evil weed instead of normal crops. Such BS.

[goodgd_yall]

32. "War on prescription drug use"

That's news to me...I really doubt the Federal govt. is spending much time and money to lower drug company profits.