Being a judgmental, bitter ass hole is a quality I have long ago divorced. I guess like any split, there are times that I reminisce about the good old days. So, yesterday, while dealing with a migraine, I read an email that was a link to an article about a Doctor being sentenced for her role in a huge pill mill. She got 5 years, broke into tears, and claimed chronic fatigue ruined her career as an anesthesiologist, and that was the job she could find.
She dispensed 360,000 oxycodone 30 mg tablets, a C-II narcotic and equivalent to 2,160,000 Percocet. Another doctor got 5 & 1/2 years for dispensing 960,000 oxycodone 30mgs (about $10 million street value), or almost 6 Million Percs. Both are trying to get further sentence reductions by “cooperating.” Oh, this particular group of pill mills (all owned by the same two scumbags) killed 50 people. 2 of the 3 doctors charged with murder have “died.”
For comparison sake, I was charged on 1000 C-III narcotics, crap like Vicodin, and I got 12 months. You might see why bitter and I are rekindling our romance briefly. What a load of bullshit. Have any of these people been in one of these places? Probably not. I can, for $200, go get an MRI that will be “interpreted” in my favor if no serious issues are present. For another $200-$250, I “see” a doctor, who writes his standard crap, and out I walk. There is no pain management plan, just an obliteration of it with doses meant for a terminal bone cancer patient.
I don’t know how, given federal statutes, these sentences are even possible. The distance between my crime and theirs is monumental. Sure, House & Eminem may extol the perils of Vicodin addiction, and I suppose that it sucks like the rest of opiate problems, but the cliff is not so high, the fall not as deep. 1400 roxies did my life in by the way, ok, maybe more, but that was the amount prescribed and not bought on the streets.
I’d love to see these fuckers rot, because I fed my own addiction when I was caught, and sure, those pills I diverted were sold, but in my circle, they were a band-aid for staving off the sickness from dope. These people ruin plenty of lives, and while a year in the feds sucked, 5 spent at a country club is not going to be too difficult.
Justice…it sucks. This is not fixing shit. There are maybe 10 less ads in the Broward New Times for pain clinics. New ones are opening. And guess what, they will toe the line of the law and not be able to get shut down. If only 20% of their prescriptions written can be for narcotics, guess what, if I went there tomorrow I would walk out with my narcotics, some Ibuprofen, some Soma, some stool softener, and some Neurontin for nerve pain. 4 non-controlled, and the one everyone wants. Still easy as pie to get, still a joke.
This is reality, this is the shit the papers don’t print. Save me your tears, Dr. Chico, I don’t really get how your Hippocratic oath was so easily dismissed.
What can I say, I feel better. I screwed up massively in my life, and really shouldn’t complain. I paid for my sins as a pharmacist, and know the felony is its own life sentence.
Que sera sera. These are the times we live in. Accept them or fight to change them.
“Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.” ~William Shakespeare, Henry VI
Peace -MFJ
Blurred Clarity 