Who else attended the Webinar for the HHS today? I asked 3 questions-1. Are they going to address the DEA problem that is scaring the doctors’ so badly? 2-Can they ask the FDA & the CDC to study chronic & intractable pain patients who have successfully taken opioids for years because no one has studied us. & 3. Even though medical marijuana is legal is WA state, we are not allowed to use it if we go to a pain clinic. Are their other states with this problem? & this also goes to stigma-being treated like an addict-will they add this to their stigma section? Many people addressed the DEA question & the moderator said that the best response was to support the HHS report and work through your legislature and contact your Senators in WA DC by phone. The more noise we make as constituents (voters) the better chance we have at changing things. No answer on the other 2 questions-maybe they will address them later. I was unable to hear the moderator responding to questions after the webinar was ended so I don’t know what questions were answered. Anybody else hear that part of the broadcast? Anybody else submit questions?
I have posed this question before and it would seem like those on this HHS webinar today… has just confirmed my fear/suspicions… The DEA is/has been no where around when all these various Fed/State groups are trying to – at least – put up the front that they are trying to help the chronic pain community and getting some adequate pain management.
I just wonder if it is a indication that the DEA is going to keep on as business as usual… targeting innocent prescribers, raiding their offices and confiscating their assets.
Will the DEA be encouraged or discouraged if Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy proposed that money seized from Mexican drug cartels get signed into law to build “the wall” ? https://www.wndu.com/content/news/GOP-senator-suggests-using-drug-cartel-money-for-border-wall-504325111.html
Filed under: General Problems
Jan, You just identified two HUGE issues in such a clear way-DEA interference into medical practice and the other issue I never considered..that our voices are being clearly DIVERTED by inexperienced health staffers…how on earth will we ever be heard if this is the case?
It was surprising when Cindy said legislators don’t hear from us. I personally know many, many people who have been very vocal. It has been discouraging to receive replies back that don’t have anything to do with pain or treating it. It is good to know why this is happening! Now …what do we do about it?
Jan, I agree with you 100%! My daughter is a CPP and I’ve sent countless letters and made phone calls most don’t even respond and if they do it’s to tell how they are fighting the “opioid crisis”. I also listened to the webnar and heard Cindy say that very same thing. HELLO these people are SICK most are doing good just to get dressed and make it through another torturous day….they simply
don’t have the energy to fight.
Ditto,,I attended and basically ask the same 3 questions,,,for if they do not get the threat of the dea off of these doctors back,,,nothing will change,,Also,,getting rid of the cdc guideline and counting /honoring our death as what they truly are,,,death due to FORCED physical pain,,ie,,tortured to death,,,Soo of course,,none of my ??? were answer’d,,,as always,Oh and when will the data be corrected to stop putting our medicine in the same category as heroin to trump up numbers,,,ie,,when will truthful data start coming out of our government agencies,,,,maryw
I attended the Webinar, and your 3 questions were the most important and the ones I had! I couldn’t figure out how to ask questions and the time was so short I could barely take notes to ask the Federal Docket about.
I emailed Emily back and stated that IF THE DOCTORS COULDN’T BE MADE TO FEEL SAFE FROM THE DEA OR ANY OTHER AGENCY TARGETING THEM, GOING TO COURT, LOSING THEIR LICENSES AND BEING JAILED FOR 20 TO 150 YEARS, THEN NOTHING THEY SAID OR DID WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!
EMILY just told me to share that in the docket. I greatly respect and admire Cindy Steinberg, but she and others, have never worked for the government, so when she or others, keep telling us to write/email our Congress men/women, they have no idea that the Health staffers are usually young millennials who don’t care about the issue, are lazy I’m sorry to say, and when they see the word pain they automatically send us form letters telling us how hard Congress is working to stop the “Opioid Epidemic” —— the opposite of what we are complaining about!
Cindy actually said, “Congress keeps asking why aren’t there more pain patients commenting or appearing before them?” Hello, knock knock (see above). So this is why so many patients despair and kill themselves because we are up against a block wall!!!
It would take an act of Congress to abolish the DEA or minimum, remove their authority to sue doctors, esp. when the DOJ pays the DEA investigators to target physicians and sue them. Trump keeps telling the DEA to tell drug manufacturers to reduce their quotas 3 years in a row!
I know we can’t give up, and we are fighting for future generations, but it’s so darn hard to fight against dictators and bureaucracy!