The Freedom Bulletin

William Anderson at LewRockwell.com has a great article about a brave freedom fighter that the world lost on Christmas Eve. Siobhan Reynolds was an advocate against overzealous federal prosecution of doctors who prescribe pain medication, and its horrible effects on people who suffer from pain. Her husband died after the only doctor who would prescribe him the medication he needed was forced out of business (and thrown in jail) by federal prosecutors. As a result, she founded the Pain Relief Network, with the mission of educating people about pain medication and advocating for those suffering from chronic pain and doctors who treat them. As a reward for her advocacy and courageous exercise of her free speech rights, she became the subject of a grand jury investigation for obstruction of justice, forcing her organization to close.

“Reynolds had a husband, Sean, who had a serious health problem, a congenital connective tissue disorder that left him with debilitating pain in his joints. Like so many others in the USA who suffer from severe chronic pain, he was unable to receive adequate medical relief because the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, not doctors, determine what is a ‘legitimate medical purpose’ for prescribing of opioids for pain. However, Siobhan’s husband finally found a physician, Dr. William Hurwitz, a doctor in Northern Virginia, who was willing to write prescriptions for higher doses of pain-killers.

The higher doses worked, and for the first time in years, Siobhan’s husband was able to function at a much more normal level, but such satisfactory results were anathema to the nation’s drug warriors, and especially to U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty, the Religious Right federal prosecutor who might have publicly proclaimed his Christian beliefs, but did not carry them to his line of work…

Dr. Hurwitz, his life and medical practice shattered, his family destroyed, and his future in prison, was not the only victim of McNulty’s viciousness. (While in prison, Dr. Hurwitz developed an eye disorder, and because of the lack of decent medical care provided for federal inmates, he became blind in one eye.) Patients suffering from chronic pain – people who at best McNulty considered to be ‘collateral damage’ – found themselves in a desperate situation. The Hurwitz prosecution not only kept him from writing prescriptions, but other doctors did not want to experience the same fate and refused to adequately treat certain patients for pain.”

Anderson’s article is a must read – he makes excellent points about patients’ rights, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, the doctrine of mens rea, statutory vagueness, and more. Read it at his blog or at LewRockwell.com.

The headline for this article in LewRockwell.com’s archives reads, “The War on Drugs Is the War for Pain.” What a perfect description of how wrong and misguided the federal government’s policy on prescription pain medications is. It is bad enough that we have the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, which takes away each person’s right to decide for themselves which medications to take, and only allows them to take medications that a doctor approves of. Now, doctors don’t even have the right to prescribe the medications that they think are appropriate. They are browbeaten, by the threat of federal prosecution, into disrespecting their patients’ wishes and depriving them of the pain medications that they need to function. It is unacceptable that, when companies are willing to produce effective pain medications and people are willing to buy them, people are not allowed to gain adequate relief for their pain. What could be a more unworthy cause to fight for, and what could more defeat the purpose of life, than to subject innocent people to needless pain?

Florida Governor Rick Scott recently signed a law requiring people to pass a drug test in order to receive welfare, and several other states have been debating and voting on similar measures. The ACLU is suing Florida over the requirement, saying that it constitutes a suspicionless search and seizure, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. I agree with them.

While I share the desire to decrease spending on welfare, and the idea that someone with enough money to afford drugs shouldn’t be getting welfare, requiring people to give a urine sample is just plain wrong. I actually don’t think welfare should exist at all – forcibly taking from people with money and giving to those without is not the best solution to poverty – but having welfare plus mandatory drug testing is just adding one wrong on top of another.

Being made to give a urine sample is degrading. It also violates people’s privacy rights, since what substances are in your urine are none of the government’s business. Instead of merely blocking drug users from receiving welfare, the urine test requirement punishes all welfare applicants by taking away their dignity and privacy. It is indeed a search – quite an invasive one at that – that would be performed on all applicants, regardless of whether there was any reason to suspect them of wrongdoing.

One could argue that you don’t need to apply for welfare, so no one is required to submit to the search, but this is like justifying the use of naked machines and pat-downs by saying that no one needs to fly. Some people need to fly for their jobs, just as some people need welfare money in order to live. In any case, people should be free to choose travel plans and methods of transportation, as well as to apply for government assistance, without having to include in their calculus the need to avoid degrading searches.

If you want to cut welfare spending, just cut welfare spending…or even abolish it. Drug tests inflict degradation on all welfare recipients, which is in itself a grievous wrong, and solve nothing.

Google agreed today to pay $500 million to the federal government because it allowed Canadian pharmacies to use its advertising services. The problem, according to the government, is that the drugs from Canada sold on these websites are not subject to FDA approval and might even be available without a prescription.

But in a truly free society, this should not be a problem. Companies should not be able to deceive their customers by exaggerating the benefits or hiding the risks of their products. But this doesn’t mean that people should only be allowed to have the medications that the government has determined are safe. People have a right to buy medications from other countries if they want to, including those that are risky or unproven, and people certainly have a right to make their own decisions about what medications to put into their bodies, with or without a doctor’s input.

The investigation into Google is just another example of how the FDA – in particular the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, which made it illegal to obtain many medicines without a doctor’s permission – unjustly takes away people’s liberties.

Today was the deadline for ballot initiatives to be filed in Massachusetts for the 2012 election. There are some interesting initiatives that are aiming to get on the ballot:

• The Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance wants to legalize medical marijuana for people suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, or other serious illnesses. People would need permission from a doctor, and they could only get marijuana from treatment centers that would be regulated by the state Department of Public Health.
• The Fatherhood Coalition filed an initiative to abolish Chapter 209A, a law which allows people to get restraining orders without proof, of even an allegation, of wrongdoing. Designed to protect victims of domestic abuse, the law can also be used unjustly by people who are merely mad at their spouse or want to kick them out of the house.
• Massachusetts Citizens for Life is trying to abolish the state’s individual mandate, which requires all residents to have health insurance. I am glad to see this because, while the national individual mandate is the subject of a lot of controversy and criticism, the state one hasn’t been nearly as much.
• David Nunez, a Colorado casino developer, submitted a petition to allow three casinos in Massachusetts.
• Stand For Children wants teachers’ merit to be weighed above seniority in hiring, layoff, and transfer policies.
• Plus, there were 26 other petitions filed, for a total of 31.

To make it onto the ballot, each question must be certified by Attorney General Martha Coakley. Then, organizers must collect the signatures of 68,911 registered voters by November, as well as another 11,485 signatures by next July.

August 4 update: How did I miss this one? The Death With Dignity Act, which would allow people with terminal illnesses to obtain drugs to end their lives, is trying to get on the ballot as well. In my opinion, this would definitely be a step in the right direction.

Here’s an interesting appellate success story for a defendant. Luis Melendez-Diaz, 32 years old and from Jamaica Plain, was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 2004 in Boston’s very own Suffolk County Superior Court. He appealed on the grounds that Massachusetts law allowed proescutors to present forensic experts’ reports as evidence without allowing him to cross-examine the experts, thereby violating his Sixth Amendment right to “be confronted with the witnesses against him.” His case went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 2009, they overturned his conviction and sent his case back to be tried again. Today, in his retrial, he was acquitted.

The message? Appealing one’s conviction can work, although it isn’t statistically likely. Melendez-Diaz is still in prison for a drug trafficking conviction in another county, but it does seem like constitutionally, he had a point. Congratulations to him, I guess!

Source: Boston.com

I never really thought the FDA should be abolished. The Durham-Humphrey Amendment for sure, but I wasn’t so sure about the FDA in its entirety. Now I think I may have changed my mind. The FDA looks like it’s really going too far this time. A federal advisory panel has voted to ban the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet, as well as banning Tylenol in sizes larger than 325 mg.

The FDA is not required to follow the advice of the panel, but it usually does. In this case, I really hope it doesn’t. There is absolutely no reason to ban these medicines.

The purpose of the FDA is to protect people from fraudulent businesses, not to protect people from themselves. Claiming a drug is perfectly safe when it isn’t, or claiming a drug works when it doesn’t, those things should be banned by the government. But making a drug that has some risks, which are clearly explained on the package, should not be banned by the government. The FDA should ban drug makers from lying to customers. It shouldn’t ban people from obtaining the drugs that they want. It is each person’s right to evaluate the risks of medicines and decide whether they want to take them. The FDA cannot tell people what tradeoffs between risks and benefits are acceptable and which aren’t.

This brilliant article says it better than I probably ever could, so here are two quotes from it:

The proper function of government is to protect individual rights and guard against fraud, not to restrict freedom of choice to protect people from their own ignorance. 

Regulation advocates may protest: “What about the guy who consumes a drug without reading the package insert, consulting a medical professional, or looking at consumer websites or reference books? Shouldn’t he be protected?” In short, no. Forcing all consumers to live by rules that cater to the least responsible individuals imposes huge costs on everyone else and ultimately fails to protect even the willfully ignorant.

Additionally, banning Vicodin, Percocet, and 500 mg Tylenol would harm many innocent people. These medicines are all very effective at treating pain. Vicodin is prescribed over 100 million times each year in the USA. Many of these people probably need it to treat chronic pain, or temporary pain caused by surgery. There don’t seem to be any good alternatives to the medicines that the FDA’s advisory panel wants to ban. 500 mg Tylenol is useful to people who need a higher dose to treat their pain, and Vicodin and Percocet are the only way for many people to avoid constant, agonizing pain. It seems like a very reasonable decision to risk liver damage in order to be free from pain and able to enjoy life. Yet the FDA might take that option away from people and condemn them to lives of misery.

Not for nothing, but think about the fact that the FDA apparently has no problem with Viagra, Levitra, or Cialis, but might ban Vicodin and Percocet. What does that say about the FDA’s values? Apparently they think it’s more important to have satisfying sex than to be free from debilitating pain. How ridiculous.

If the FDA followed the panel’s recommendations, it would not only be taking away people’s rights and treating us like we don’t know what’s best for ourselves, but it would inflict pain and suffering on millions of innocent people. The government should not have the ability to do that, and that’s why I now think the FDA should be abolished.

Out of the three Massachusetts ballot initiatives, this is the one that I am the least opinionated about. Question 2 would decriminalize the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana and instead institute civil penalties. Convictions for marijuana possession would no longer give people a criminal record or hurt their chances of getting into college, getting a job, receiving student financial aid, public housing, or public assistance.

On the one hand, I don’t think the government has the right to prevent things that it has decided are “harmful,” “dangerous,” or “bad for people.” The government doesn’t have the right to ban things that could lead to harmful consequences, so opponents of Question 2 are wrong to argue that marijuana use should be penalized because it could lead to the use of more dangerous drugs. Additionally, the purpose of the law is not to deter crimes but simply to punish criminals.

On the other hand, I don’t see anything wrong with the fact that marijuana users are penalized in their chances for college admissions, jobs, or publicly-funded assistance. Because using (or not using) marijuana is a choice, it does not seem fundamentally unfair for schools and employers to take it into account when determining an applicant’s merit. Another thing I don’t like about Question 2 is that it would force offenders under age 18 to complete a drug-awareness program or else have their fine raised to $1000 (which the parents would be responsible for if the kid didn’t pay it). This is ageist and demeaning. I am opposed to the idea of forcing offenders to undergo educational programs because I believe the purpose of the law is to punish criminals, not to rehabilitate them. I also don’t believe in holding parents responsible for their children’s conduct, because everyone is responsible for his or her own conduct. And why not treat people of all ages equally?

So in conclusion, I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with the current marijuana laws. A “yes” vote on Question 2 wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but why fix something that isn’t broken? I don’t think Question 2 would make the laws any more just than they are now, so I’m going to vote “no” on it.