Are Doctors Liable for Prescribing Drugs to Addicts?

Drug addiction from prescribed drugs now exceeds that from drugs coming from other sources. Oxycodone and similar prescribed drugs are now more prevalent and dangerous than street drugs like marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines; and they are easier to get! At what point do you think the law should ascribe civil and criminal liability to doctors who prescribe drugs to people who are known or obvious addicts? There are two effective ways to deal with addiction: (1) Prevention, which is the most effective and (2) Interdiction at the source. Arrest of drug addicts and abusers and middle and low level drug providers, jail and rehabilitation programs are not working to stem the addiction crisis.

It is the law in WV that a bartender or bar can be held liable for overserving an intoxicated individual who goes out and injures himself or others. It is therefore no stretch to hold doctors accountable for overprescribing or failing to monitor use of prescription drugs.

Prescription drug abuse is a huge problem. However, blaming physicians is a really bad solution.

Doctors do their best to treat patients’ symptoms. If that symptom is chronic pain, there are very few options. Most treatments require a month or more of intensive physical therapy every few days.

Where in this county are such treatments available? And who could afford them if they were available?

We judge certain drugs through moral blinders. For example, a drug to lower cholesterol levels is great, but a drug to alleviate pain is somehow morally suspect. That’s not right. Chronic pain ruins more lives than any other treatable medical problem yet there is little sympathy for people who are so afflicted. Today chronic pain is viewed through the same bias asthma was a half century ago. Back then, most folks thought asthma was mental. That people who couldn’t breath just weren’t trying hard enough. That people with asthma were weak and morally inferior.

The same was true, until a short time ago, about people who suffered from severe depression. They lack the moral fortitude to perservere. The same is true today about chronic pain.

Physicians do not like to see people suffer. When the only available treatment is painkillers, what should a doctor do? What standard, other than their own professional judgment, should they apply? Should they be required to check with the Sheriff’s Department? The State Police? Do we really want to have a government agent sitting in on every doctor-patient consultation to decide if the patient’s story meets the government’s standard for treatment? And who is going to pay for all that extra bureauracy?

Yes, there is a problem with the abuse of prescription drugs in this nation. We would do well to look for the source of the problem. Why do Americans become addicts in the first place? Is it because they want to join the wretched refuse of humanity? More likely, it is because they really were in severe pain at some point, or mired in personal or economic despair, or simply made a very bad mistake and have no way out.

There are only three ways we can deal with addicts: 1. Give them effective medical care. 2. Let them buy illegal drugs. 3 Imprison or kill them. So-called moralists would embrace option three, but one wonders about their definition of ‘moral.’ And, since many addicts are (or were) our friends and relatives, doesn’t option number one sound like the best? If so, what is our nation doing to make such medical care available?

Many addicts want to quit. What real options do they have to help them kick the habit? Not many. Because our culture would rather punish than forgive, we’ll spend billions for law enforcement but mere pocket change for rehabilitation.

Why do people visit several physicians to get multiple prescriptions? Is it because doctors are criminals or because their patients are addicts? Obviously, the patients are addicts. Isn’t it a whole lot safer for both the patient and the community for the addicts to get their drugs from doctors rather than by committing crimes to buy drugs on the street?

Blaming physicians is not the way to go. That’s treating the symptom rather than the disease. And the wrong symptom at that.

-- Rich Laska

A major part of this problem is the people who dupe doctors into perscribing them pain medication so they can sell it on the street. There is a big difference between what pain medication costs at a pharmacy and what it can be sold for.