In the past few years, we have represented numerous clients who get hooked on prescription drugs and then end up selling the drugs to then feed their habit, which often becomes a 'one hundred to five hundred dollar a day' habit. The worst part about these cases is that so many of them start with the client innocently going to the doctor for an injury and the doctor prescribing a ridiculous dosage of pain killer that is both unnecessary and very addicting. Unfortunately, because the laws are they way they are, these doctors are almost always protected from prosecution.
Don't get me wrong, probably 80% or more of the health professionals out there do not do this. Furthermore, there are probably another 10% that are making judgment calls, and who am I (who knows nothing about medicine) to be the one calling these doctors out. But, so may stories of clients going to the doctor with a mild injury and leaving with a high milligram oxycontin prescription, it is just unreal that they get away with this.
There are few drugs nowadays more powerful and addicting than oxycontin and once the cycle begins of a)client prescribed oxycontin, b)client gets addicted to oxycontin, c)client needs oxycontin every day d)client sells oxycontin to feed habit, there is really nothing that can stop it but death, arrest, or becoming a victim. It is very common that you see undercover officers going out and arresting the drug dealer in the bad neighborhood selling $20 of cocaine to a junkie. Yet, tens of thousands of doctors (and i hesitate to the call them doctors because they are an embarassmnent to the profession) can look at an MRI and know nothing is wrong with a person, yet prescribe an amount of drugs that they know the patient will become dependant on.
Not to mention, the 'corner drug dealer' is usually making 1/20th of what the clown falsely precribing this medication does. The purpose of this blog is not to condone any sort of drug dealing. The undercover detectives in our county do a great job, put their lives on the line, and our helping remove some of the most dangerous people from our streets. But working on so many of these cases, we all share their frustration with the worst kind of drug dealer, the guy in the nice office which a Dr. behind his name that is actually turning out more drug dealers than the worst neighborhoods around.
