The day is picturesque for July… White fluffy clouds in the sky, the sun shining bright and beautiful, the warmth can be felt through the tiny window to his room. His room, a man sits alone in a cell reflecting on his 20+ year career of giving his time and talents to the betterment of humanity, its health and well- being. He’s been at the beside when a newborn baby has been brought into this world, taken its first breath, and shared in the joy and celebration of the family as they fulfilled the Great Command to “Go forth and multiply…”; but also held the hand of the dying as they passed from this life into the next, taken their final breath, and shared in the sorrow and grief of the family as they lament the fact that “Life is but a vapor….”. He sits in a cell reflecting on those moments and every memorable life-changing moment in between. A man who has been prolific enough in his own career, yet lucky enough to have impacted the careers of many of his peers through an extensive resume of teaching, research, and consulting. He is sitting in a cell in K Block after being accused, yes accused and not convicted of what is a political argument. Not for breaking a law or a scientific fact, but a political judgement of his medical opinion.

No, this story in not taking place in Russia or China, but it is unfolding right here, right now on the 4th of July in the United States of America. Independence Day, the day we celebrate “FREEDOM” and everything that supposedly separates us from the afore-mentioned countries and every other country on this planet we, as the human race, calls home.

The guy in the cell is me, Jeffrey W. Young, Jr MSN FNP APN-BC, and I’m not alone…. not truly alone.   I am surrounded by many, many other men (detainees) on the BLOCK in a Federal holding facility in the State of Tennessee.

FREEDOM: a concept we think or at least I thought I had or understood, until it was taken away. Now in the fourth decade of my life, sadly, I have come to realize that we do not live in a FREE country and that you are truly GUILTY until proven innocent. This contradicts everything I believed in and was ever taught.

The average American citizen today is busy with picnic plans, family activities, beer, hotdogs, and apple pie; and are completely unaware of the blatant abuse of power currently going on by certain branches of government. Recently the American people have been horrified and outraged by the images of “immigrant detainees” and their plight unfolding on TV right in front of them. Here is a rude awakening, they are “federal detainees” as are myself and all of my new “friends”.

“POWER CORRUPTS…ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY” — Charles Colton

We as Americans have been so afraid of losing our FREEDOM to a foreign power that we have silently consented to our FREEDOM being taken away, as Premier Khrushchev predicted at the United Nations in the 1960’s, by powers from within “without firing a shot”. You might say… “This couldn’t happen to me, and you are just being dramatic”. Yes, I too used to be an idealistic American. In fact, I raised money for, promoted, befriended, and voted for the very Congressman that became a Federal judge that subsequently signed the warrant for the Gestapo style raid on my office and home. RAID, yes a raid, with machine guns drawn and battering rams in hand. Came into my office with machine guns at the ready, putting patients and their families on the floor, children on the floor with machine guns to their heads, raiders screaming “GET DOWN and STAY DOWN!!!!”. Again, this is not a scene from a World War II movie, there wasn’t SS or Swastika arm bands on the soldiers; this took place in a rural God fearing town in West Tennessee in the United States of America, and not in the 1940’s, but 2017.

For the last 2 plus years, I have been reinventing myself and my practice trying hard not to abandon my passion and calling, attempting to meet the needs of my patients; yet conscious of the climate change and the systematic removal of what has been instilled into us over centuries of medicine, but especially in the last 19 years, known as the Patient’s Bill of Rights and the Right of every patient to be pain free. We were taught that pain was the fifth vital sign and instructed to take it as seriously as we took heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and respiratory rate (oxygen status). However, we were never given an objective tool to quantify this subjective measure. We were told, “pain is what the patient says it is” and given the 1-10 pain scale and “the faces board” ranging from happy to sad. And with these tools in hand asked to treat patients and penalized and threatened with lawsuits if we did not comply. Fast forward nearly two decades later and now Health Care professionals are being prosecuted and being jailed and imprisoned for doing exactly what we were trained to do.

I have not written a single opioid pain pill over a two and a half year period of time, yet on April 17th, 2019; after spending the evening with my son for his 15th birthday, I was arrested in my home in front of my son with agents jokingly asking me “how was the concert last night”. Apparently we had been followed. Yes, in the United States of America.

Since that day I have unfortunately learned about the “unrule of law”. How that the law is NOT a line engraved in marble, immoveable and unchangeable; but rather, the law is like the string of an electric guitar, it is fixed at both ends and can be bent and manipulated to play a certain tune. A tune the powers that be would like for you to hear.   The lawyers being the modern day “axe men” or virtuosos. The lawyer that plays the best tune wins.   The Federal government and its unlimited resources enjoy a certain “style of music” and if you don’t play their “tune” you lose. Song as old as time.

So here I am, on this Independence (FREEDOM) Day, yet another holiday “locked-up on the Block” away from my son and other family and friends; awaiting my chance to prove my innocence of something that isn’t even a crime, but the government’s misinterpretation of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) to further a political agenda. Unable, by nature of being incarcerated, of mounting a defense I would be able to coordinate if I were on the “outside”.   This “stacking of the deck” in the government’s favor assures them to maintain their 98% conviction rate (actually a plea deal rate…. all men long to be FREE).   2% of the population have to fortitude to play the game out.   Yes, we are still talking about The United States.

“The bar for criminality is high, a

Convicted Nurse Practitioner

nd for criminality to exist there must be knowledge of, and willful intent to commit a crime.”

–Robert Mueller (The Mueller Report)

I pray for the fortitude and strength to see this through to its JUST conclusion….

God Bless America,

Jeffrey W. Young, Jr., MSN FNP APN-BC.