Sunday, October 07, 2012

IF 10,000 FLORIDA PAIN PRESCRIPTION DEATHS AREN'T ENOUGH TO PERSUADE DOCTORS TO USE FLORIDA'S DRUG DATABASE, WILL PRISON?

Doctors and pharmacists in Florida could find themselves in need of a Clearwater Criminal Lawyer for failing to check the database of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program allowing addicts of pain killers such as oxycontin or xanax to receive multiple prescriptions.  The law was meant to save lives by placing a database of pain killer prescriptions which doctors and pharmacists would use to determine if someone was abusing pain killers with multiple prescriptions from different doctors. 
Florida Doctors sow death from pain killer overdoses by not using drug database
Van Gogh, The Sower, 1888
According to press reports many Doctors aren't taking the problem seriously as only one in twelve doctors who prescribe pain medication have signed into the database, despite over 10,000 Florida deaths from pain prescription drug overdoses over a six year period.
For those Doctors who run pain clinics or prescribe highly addictive pain killers on a regular basis here's a bit of unsolicited advice from a Clearwater Criminal Defense Lawyer and former Pinellas Drug Prosecutor familiar with drug prosecutions in Florida. 
First you might want to remember the criminal case against Doctor Bob, a pain doctor who was given a twenty year sentence in Federal Court for writing prescriptions for oxycondin, vicodin and other drugs which led to the death of five addicted patients; although the Federal Appeals Court has granted an appeal his life is still ruined. Any Pain Doctor's failure to use the Monitoring Program's database will be an effective piece of evidence against that doctor if ever charged with Unlawful Dispensing of Controlled Substances or Conspiracy to Traffic in Drugs, because it takes away a possible defense of having no idea a patient had other pain prescriptions. So sign up, save a patient's life while saving yourself a ten year minimum mandatory drug sentence while your at it.