ACLU: PAIN RELIEF IS A CIVIL RIGHT: “THOUSANDS HAVE NEEDLESSLY SUFFERED”

REPUBLISHED AND REPORTED BY

NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L.CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, BELINDA BROWN-PARKER, IN THE SPIRIT OF JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., INC.T. SPIRIT OF REV. C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., MBA., IN THE SPIRIT OF THE HON. PATRICE LUMUMBA, IN THE SPIRIT OF ERLIN CLEMENT SR., WALTER F. WRENN III., MD., JULIE KILLINGWORTH, LESLY POMPY MD., CHRISTOPHER RUSSO, MD., NANCY SEEFELDT, WILLIE GUINYARD BS., JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., MBA, BEVERLY C. PRINCE MD., FACS., NEIL ARNAND, MD., RICHARD KAUL, MD., LEROY BAYLOR, JAY K. JOSHI MD., MBA, ADRIENNE EDMUNDSON, ESTER HYATT PH.D., WALTER L. SMITH BS., IN THE SPIRIT OF BRAHM FISHER ESQ., MICHELE ALEXANDER MD., CUDJOE WILDING BS, MARTIN NJOKU, BS., RPH., IN THE SPIRIT OF DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD, BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS

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Kate Nicholson, a founder of the National Pain Advocacy Center, believes now is the time to course-correct. Pain relief, in her view, is a civil right. While opioids are not a one-size-fits-all pain reliever, the rollback on prescriptions has disproportionately impacted people with disabilities, people of color, women, and incarcerated folks.

She is also a civil rights attorney and a nationally-recognized expert on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). She formerly served in the U.S. Department of Justice for 18 years, where she litigated and managed cases, coordinated federal disability policy, and drafted the current ADA regulations.

https://www.aclu.org/podcast/pain-relief-is-a-civil-right

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https://www.aclu.org/podcast/pain-relief-is-a-civil-right

BIO FOR KATE NICHOLSON

She was an appointed member of the Opioid Workgroup of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a 2019-20 Mayday Pain & Society Fellow, and she currently serves on the Global Advocacy Task Force for the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Kate also serves on task forces and in working groups of many aligned civil rights, disability rights, women’s health, pain, and drug policy organizations. Kate was a Senior Fellow at Dartmouth College and is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

THOUSANDS OF PAIN PATIENTS HAVE NEEDLESSLY DIED

THOUSANDS OF PHYSICIANS, PHARMACISTS, NURSES DENTISTS HAVE BEEN WRONGLY TARGETED AND IMPRISONED

ACCORDING TO THE ACLU:

“For years now, the pain has been the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting more than 50 million Americans annually. This isn’t the kind of pain you endure when you trip onto the pavement, scab, bruise, and heal. It’s the persistent gnawing, aching, throbbing that happens over a long period of time. This is chronic pain.

One of the most powerful and effective forms of treatment for pain is the safe use of opioids. Opioids in combination with other therapies have allowed those hindered by pain to live full and vibrant lives, but the stigma around opioid use was exacerbated in 2016 due to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, that both seriously discouraged doctors from prescribing these drugs and also over attributed the prescription of them as the cause of addiction and overdose.”

https://www.aclu.org/podcast/pain-relief-is-a-civil-right

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The Supreme Court has long recognized that the state’s protection of “the health of its citizens . . . is at the core of its police power,” Sporhase v. Neb. ex rel. Douglas, 458 U.S. 941, 956 (1982), and has expressly rejected the notion that the CSA grants either DOJ or DEA the broad authority to regulate the practice of medicine:

Federal law enforcement agencies are unqualified to determine whether drugs “have a useful and legitimate medical purpose and are necessary to maintain the health and general welfare of the American people.”

21 U.S.C. § 801(1). Congress, therefore, did not even leave it to DEA to perform one of its core CSA functions—the scheduling of controlled substances— without health care agency oversight and evaluation. See id. § 811(b) (“The Attorney General shall, before initiating proceedings . . . [to schedule or reschedule a drug] . . . request from the [HHS] Secretary a scientific and medical evaluation, . . . The recommendations of the Secretary to the Attorney General shall be binding . . . as to such scientific and medical matters.”).

https://www.aclu.org/podcast/pain-relief-is-a-civil-right

Furthermore, this Court has expressly held that DOJ cannot criminally prosecute OUD prescribers under CSA Section 841(a)(1) unless they sell “drugs, not for legitimate purposes but ‘primarily for the profits to be derived therefrom’ ” and are acting outside the usual course of professional practice such that their behavior is akin to that of a “large-scale [drug] pusher, not as a physician.” Moore at 345.

In sum, the CSA permits the federal prosecution of prescribers who operate as drug traffickers as traditionally understood and, thereby, knowingly or intentionally engage in prescribing conduct that exceeds the bounds of professional practice. Congress never intended to delegate to law enforcement the authority to regulate the practice of medicine by criminalizing good-faith medical mistakes. See 21 U.S.C. § 903.

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references:

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WALTER F. WRENN MD