I saw this “I WANT JUSTICE” stated by a chronic pain pt somewhere on the web in the last week. So “you” want justice out of our judicial system that is mostly self-serving. Our judicial is basically can be divided into two segments courts/attorneys and cops/law enforcement.
One has to ask if some of the shows that we see on TV …. Bull, Blue Bloods, Chicago PD… comes to mind… reflects how those parts of our judicial system really act/function ?
We are seeing more and more “video” from cops’ body cameras… some showing the “good side” of law enforcement and some the “not so good side”.
I can’t count the number of times that pts have told me that they have tried to file a complaint with the agency that is suppose to enforce the Americans with Disability Act and get a “not interested” from the agency, but they are part of the DOJ, just like the DEA is.
Two decades ago we saw a group of attorneys (46 state AG’s) sue the tobacco industry for the harm/cost of them selling a legal product and extracted/extorted a minimum of 206 Billion that is to be paid off over 25 yrs… and that will be coming to a end in the next five years or so.
Now some of those same attorneys are now lining up to sue all the parts of the opiate pharmaceutical manufacturers and those in the distribution channels. I am just waiting for them to start including the insurance/PBM industry in these lawsuits because they did – to some extent – facilitate all of these opiate prescriptions because they paid some/most/all of the cost of these opiate prescriptions.
All one has to do is visit http://doctorsofcourage.org/ website to read about the many fabricated cases the DEA has brought against all too many doctors and confiscated all of the doc’s assets and closed their practices. Kind of reminds you of the stories that were told about the Mafia that extracted/extorted money from small business for “protection insurance” so that their small business would not “put out of business” by some tragic event.
IF you have noticed all of these lawsuits at the pharma/opiate industry is being done by private law firms on a contingency basis. So the bureaucracy .. who claims that it has suffered financial damages from the “opiate crisis” they are not even putting any of the taxpayers’ money to seek restitution.
Should the chronic pain community follow the state/federal bureaucrats in how to hopefully “level the playing field” ? It would appear that no law firm is going to take on this issue on a contingency basis. Entities like the ACLU and other who try to fight for people who have their civil rights violated seem to have no interest. There is claimed that there is 20 -30 million pts suffering from intractable chronic pain and while most all of the talking head talk about the 200 odd million opiate prescriptions being TOO MANY…
Just to treat the 30 million intractable chronic pain pts would take 720 million opiate prescriptions if prescribers followed the standard of care and best practice in treating intractable chronic pain pts. When you throw in the opiate needs of the other odd 70 million chronic pain pts and those pts suffering from acute pain caused by accidents, surgery and other valid issues… could easily push that number closer to TWO BILLION opiate prescriptions. Close to TEN TIMES what the “talking heads” claim are TOO MANY.
What are the chronic pain community’s options ? – IMO – it boils down to TWO… continue to suffer as the attorneys/DEA force more and more pts off their opiate pain management buy intimidating and bullying prescribers… — OR — create a non profit legal defense fund. If 10% of the chronic pain community each contributed $5 – ONE TIME… FIVE MILLION legal defense fund could be created.
Law firms will be lining up to demonstrate how they could level the playing field for the chronic pain community.
IMO… the chronic pain community needs to come together and that doesn’t mean thousands of Face Book pages, and other internet contact points or the DEA and the rest of our judicial system will hand their painful ass to them as we watch the number of suicides climb exponentially.
Filed under: General Problems
I’m ALL for Donating to the fund. But who’s gigoi to do it? PNN or NRP? Honestly I don’t trust the pain orgs to do it. It needs to be run by healthcare or somebody in healthcare like you Steve or Dr Ibsen because people trust you guys.
Announce it and I will push it!
I’m Fed UP with the entire situation!
Fed UP with CVS forcing my son whosw very I’ll into withdrawal Every single month because they take too long to fill a couple Rxs.
We The Pain Community has to stop This.
You know it’s not me standing in the way!
But there’s too many large EGOS out there and sadly they’re preventing this community from coming Together. We all MUST FIGHT Back NOW! Or it is giigo to be Too Late!!!
IMO>.. no one person should be in charge of such a legal defense fund… would need a committee of somewhere around 7 members – odd number so that you can’t end up with a “tie vote” when everyone votes. With technology… meetings could be handled over internet.