DEA Out Of Control In Las Vegas

The DEA in Las Vegas must be feeling like they need to defend their funding and to be relevant in Las Vegas. The DEA has gone after medical pot people lately, making big arrests and confiscating very small amounts of drugs. Now, they have charged a doctor with murder because of his prescription of medicines to a patient who had chronic pain. This bogus arrest has outraged the medical community in the the Las Vegas Valley and I don't blame them. And no, we are not talking about the doctor from Las Vegas who is accussed of killing Michael Jackson. From the LVRJ: After the arrest of Dr. Richard Teh last month on a murder charge for prescribing drugs to a patient who subsequently died, Dr. William Van Tobel sent an incensed email to fellow physicians in the Las Vegas Valley. "It is not just Richard Teh on trial for murder. We are all on trial," he wrote. "We need to protest. ... Talk to our federal representatives. ... Until this ridiculous and outrageous charge of murder is dropped ... why would I or any primary care provider prescribe any chronic pain medication? I know, and even briefly worked with, Dr. Teh. He is not a cash for drugs doctor." Nothing, other than the cost of malpractice insurance, has galvanized the local medical community more in recent years than Teh's arrest. A Drug Enforcement Administration task force arrested the 49-year-old internist March 8 for prescribing pain medication that authorities say led to 39-year-old Lisa Blythe's death in 2007. Charged with murder, Teh is free on $50,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is set for May 18. The Nevada State Medical Board has not taken any action against his license. An angry Dr. Mitchell Forman, president of the Clark County Medical Society, recently wrote in the society's bulletin: "The accounts that I heard from a reliable source was that five armed DEA and law enforcement officers entered the doctor's office, handcuffed him and escorted him to the Clark County Detention Center in front of his patients and staff." Forman has no doubt that the raid would have consequences far beyond Teh's arrest. He wrote: "I predict that many more patients in chronic pain will not be treated." Primary care doctor after primary care doctor, including the family practitioner Joseph DiPalma and the internist Ivan Goldsmith, say they have backed away from prescribing pain medication. Any prescription, they note, may be used in an unauthorized, illegitimate way, opening them up to an expensive criminal defense and a possible life sentence behind bars. Patients who suffer from chronic pain now are often forced to visit expensive pain specialists who are so over­burdened that it may take several weeks to get an appointment. http://www.lvrj.com/news/doctors-defend-colleague-arrested-on-murder-charge-119140369.html I may be a person who could be affected as I have chronic pain in my back and shoulders stemming from an accident I had when I was a volunteer firefighter when I lived in that strange state in the Midwest. And I use the services of a pain doctor. Having said this, at best, this is an instance of making a mistake when prescribing medicine, which is an inexact science, at best. Further, if the doctor is negligent criminally, then what about the pharmacist that prescribes the medicine? Don't they have a criminal liability if the doctor does? The DEA needs to concentrate on doctors who abuse medication or prescribe medicine like it is candy, not make criminals out of doctors who may have made a mistake. But I guess, when you act like jack booted thugs by dragging a doctor out of his office in front of his employees and patients, you are not going to worry about a little thing about ethics or the consequences of your actions.