How a Supreme Court Ruling Affects Pain Patients Taking Opiates
In June 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that doctors no longer risk unfounded criminal charges for prescribing opiates to pain patients. For many patients and physicians alike, this is good news. In the past, some physicians chose not to care for pain patients because of this restriction. Let’s examine how criminal charges became part of a doctor’s treatment plan.
Criminal Charges for Pain Relief With Opiates
Pain meds are controlled, classified substances under federal law. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) used the Controlled Substance Act, effective in 1971, to arrest physicians prescribing high numbers of opiates. The physicians were arrested as drug dealers even if he or she had a sound reason for issuing the prescription.
A few patients were indeed drug users, and others just liked how opioids made them feel. In many cases, the physicians whose offices were raided and their assets taken simply tried to alleviate patient pain. One study by Goldenbaum and colleagues and Rich and Weber found that misprescribing was primarily due to error (75 percent) without criminal intent.
How This Affects Medical Practices
For physicians who were criminally charged, the after-effects hurt patients. It is easy to see how other doctors in the community felt when a colleague suddenly lost their ability to practice medicine, their life savings, and the respect they enjoyed. They were now leery about providing care to a subset of patients who needed them.
Instead of administering to the sick, they chose to stop prescribing opiates altogether and take existing patients off their pain meds. Stopping opiates is not a simple process, but due to fear, many patients have not weaned off opiates as they should have been. This can have disastrous emotional and physical side effects.
In 2016, doctors were given prescribing guidelines written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This manual told physicians how to prescribe opiates, the dose, and the length of time.
Patient Suffering Due to Opiate Withdrawal
A patient in pain tries to find relief; in many cases, prescribed medication accomplishes that after surgery or in other instances. However, many patients experienced horrific withdrawal symptoms due to physician pressure because their meds were stopped suddenly. In addition, the patients felt abandoned without hope. Suicide became an alternative for many; some bought illicit drugs from drug dealers. Neither alternative is acceptable.
The Supreme Court Steps In
On June 27, 2022, the Supreme Court unanimously voted to increase the proof level when a physician is charged with opiate dispensing. In two cases, Ruan v United States and Kahn v United States, the court said that the federal government’s argument against the physician must be beyond a reasonable doubt, not by the preponderance of the evidence, a lower level of proof as was previously done.
The justices believed that given the harsh sentences imposed on defendants accused of acting in an intentional and unauthorized manner, they must not only meet the level of proof described above, but the doctors must have an effective way to counter the accusation. The argument that the doctor adhered to medical principles was not allowed in the past. Some cases are being retried using this new defense.
Will Patients Benefit From the New Ruling?
Patients looking to their doctors for relief from pain will undoubtedly benefit. It will help them achieve relief as they try to recuperate and use other natural formats to relieve chronic pain. The question of how long this will take is hard to answer. First of all, it depends on how the existing cases are resolved when they are again reviewed by a lower court using the new ruling. Secondly, it depends on when doctors feel free to treat patients to the best of their ability.
Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer
I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento personal injury lawyer. The new ruling by the Supreme Court may allow doctors to treat patients according to their training. Acting within the necessary parameters, the new ruling may provide patients the necessary care. If you have questions about this subject, call AutoAccident.com to discuss it in a free case review. We can be reached at (916) 921-6400 or (800) 404-5400 for free and friendly advice. We can also be reached online.
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Photo attribution: Image by Darko Stojanovic from Pixabay
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