DEA addresses prescription access issue
http://www.wesh.com/news/dea-addresses-prescription-access-issue/35273410
The Drug Enforcement Administration has delivered a message to pharmacists — start filling legitimate pain prescriptions.
WESH 2 News was there for the Florida Pharmacy Association conference in Ft. Lauderdale, a few miles from a South Florida stretch of road once dubbed the “pain corridor of the world.” The DEA addressed fallout from the pill-mill crackdown.
“Those types of pharmacies have nothing to do with legitimate medical needs,” said Susan Langston with the DEA’s Miami field division.
Langston urged a room full of more than 150 pharmacists, to fill legitimate prescriptions.
Related: Pharmacy rejects pain prescription for 4-year-old with cancer
“Not everybody’s going to fit into a checklist, but they still need their prescriptions filled,” Langston said.
The DEA has been blamed by pharmacists, the attorney general, and the governor for the prescription access problem, something the DEA denies.
“As long as you’re doing your job, doing your best and doing what you can not to participate in drug abuse and diversion, then you’re not going to have any problem with the DEA,” Langston said.
Gerald Capek has been a pharmacist for 50 years. He’s turned away legitimate patients because he didn’t have enough pain medication in stock.
WESH 2 News asked Capek if it is frustrating to turn away patients.
“Absolutely,” he replied.
“The wholesalers set arbitrary limits what they’re going to sell to you,” Capek said.
Some pharmacists blame wholesalers for setting quotas on the amount of drugs they’ll sell to pharmacies — a practice the DEA said it has nothing to do with, and has criticized.
All agree something needs to change and the DEA is pledging to help.
A week from today a state subcommittee will meet in Tallahassee. The group is tasked with coming up with ideas, and rule changes, that will help patients with legitimate pain prescriptions get their medication. Those ideas will then be voted on at the Board of Pharmacy meeting next month
Filed under: General Problems
While there is some confusion…Kratom is technically illegal in my state of Indiana. Apparently the natural alkoloids of the product fell under the list of chemicals when they passed the anti Spice laws which is also confusing in itself.
I’m suspicious of drugs approved by the FDA because they are more likely to kill you than the herbals I use. Nobody has ever died from kratom but it happens every day for those using approved oxycodone and such. Best deals are online from vendors that use Facebook to make themselves known. I’m in Florida so I don’t know who is in California. Stay away from headshop kratom and get the fresher leaves just in from Indonesia.
And yes painkills2 it does feel wonderful not to worry with the pain management doctors and their rude staff. I’m in control now. I still see doctors every few months because I need thyroid medication but that is my only tie now.
I take about a half teaspoon to a whole one in a glass of V8 juice or chocolate milk. I tried capsules and they didn’t work as well. I mix in just enough V8 to make it one big swallow. Tastes terrible but I got away from pain management all together. Been almost a year now since I’ve been there. Red strains work best on pain but all flavors help.
I’m suspicious of herbal remedies, not because I question the safety and/or efficacy of these,the original medicines, but rather I’ve personally have encountered products sold on the retail level that do not contain what the label claimed, either qualitatively or quantitatively; one of these products actually contained an unclaimed ingredient that was potentially harmful. I worked for a dietary supplement manufacturer that had a fully equipped lab, validated standards and an eminently talented and trained chemist.
Having said that, I am intrigued by this botanical Kratom. Is there a reputable source on the west coast? I would like to investigate this herb while the State twiddles it’s thumbs and decides whether or not there is enough money involved in its trade to put it on the list of prohibited substances.
Thanks for the info. Feels good to be free of your addiction to the medical industry, doesn’t it? I’m not sure how much longer Social Security will allow me to go without seeing a doctor, but the freedom has felt fantastic. 🙂
I was stuck in that nightmare, never out of pain and having to play games with doctors, pharmacists, everyone. Then I tried kratom. It’s safe, won’t kill you like the prescribed drugs. And it works well.
I’m curious, what milligram dosage and delivery system did you find worked well for you?
How stupid does the State think we all are. Perhaps the general public does not know any better, but anyone in the business of providing health care knows better. Actually, I need to give the average layperson more credit as this situation has been aired in the usual and customary media outlets. The backlash from the DEA’s panicked playing of the only game they know, Whack-a-Mole, is causing them some grief from on high. I reckon that the collective senior citizen cadre that lives in Florida has been ringing the phones and stuffing the mailboxes of their so-called “representatives” in Tallahassee and inside the Beltway over this bureaucratically induced drought of legitimately prescribed pain meds. The DEA created this situation with manifold veiled threats to anyone and everyone that is involved in the chain of logistics that starts with the prescriber and ends with the pharmacist filling the prescription for the patient. Was there inappropriate prescribing taking place. Of course. No one with a sound intellect and a measure of integrity will dispute that.
So rather than come up with any fresh ideas on how to deal with this, the DEA and their state-level counterparts employ the one tool, the only tool that they apparently know how to use. That would be their Acme Whack-a-mole mallet (endorsed by Wiley Coyote don’t ya’ know). The result was that myriads of legitimate utilizers of pain meds found themselves in the middle of a famine or 1930’s dust bowel situation. They found themselves treated as lepers with their own medical records and pharmacy profiles proclaiming, “Unclean, Unclean” when they tried to get their medication orders filled, providing that their doctor would still write the orders for them and risk losing their livelihood and their freedom on account of the veiled threats. If they could find a pharmacy to fill the meds, they were often turned away as the pharmacist and the wholesaler that provided the stock of pain meds had also had a visit from DEAno the enforcer whispering the same threats. I’m not saying anything new here, but please humour me here. I’m writing what has been reported and is common knowledge in order to demonstrate that this is the case. I live about as far away from Florida here in the Continental USA as is possible, and yet I have read these accounts in my own corner of the country.
So after this is all reported on in the daily news, the DEA has the chutzpah to trot out their official spokesperson who prevaricates and denies any responsibility for this situation. It’s no wonder that many people have lost their faith in the States ability to do anything productive and also lost their faith in the enforcers, from the rank and file street cop all the way to the upper echelons of the Federal agencies charged with preserving “public safety”. This would be fodder for a Marx Brother’s style- movie if it weren’t so grave a situation. At some point the People are going to have to stand up and say, “Mo More”. We will have to withdraw our consent to be ruled by the oligarchy/plutocracy that presumes to rule over us. This kind of news is prima facie evidence of how corrupt our government has become. I would prefer that this be accomplished either by the ballot box or the jury box, but failing that, then the cartridge box. The State knows this and that’s why there is such a frantic push to disembowel the Second Amendment; that, however, is another discussion for a different day and a different forum. Suffice it to say, the farce known as the War on Drugs has got to come to an end. Public policy has got to be changed and some other design implemented that does not require an army of badge and gun-toting members of a punitive priesthood and row after row of concrete block enclosed cages.