ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT'S OTHER WAR ON DRUGS

The federal government's war on drugs has created yet another set of
innocent victims.

A recent anesthetic shortage was aggravated and prolonged by policies of
the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration.

In December, when ESI-Lederle halted production of a widely used
intravenous anesthetic, fentanyl, hospitals around the country faced an
anesthetic shortage. Hospitals rationed their dwindling supplies. While
other drugs were substituted for fentanyl, anesthetists complained that
substitute drugs do not have fentanyl's smooth, predictable anesthetic action.

The shortage need not have been so long and severe. Pharmaceutical giant
Abbott Laboratories also makes fentanyl. Abbott could have quickly
increased production to meet demand.

But the FDA and DEA impose limits upon the amount of any narcotic a company
may produce. It took about a month of bureaucratic fumbling for Abbott to
get permission to increase production. Meanwhile, thousands of Americans
received suboptimal anesthesia.

Shifting, unpredictable, often arbitrary FDA manufacturing standards have
also created shortages of some antibiotics, painkillers, estrogens and
critical radiological pharmaceuticals.

Fearing retaliation from the FDA and DEA, most drug companies refuse to
talk about the government's inefficient and capricious regulation of the
pharmaceutical industry.

But just as thousands of Americans have died because of the FDA's tardiness
in approving life-saving drugs, so thousands endure needless suffering
because of government-induced drug shortages.

Libertarians have long called for ending the unwinnable war on drugs and
for ending the FDA's stranglehold on pharmaceutical production.

The drug war has fostered street violence, wrongful imprisonment, a
trashing of the Constitution, and police and judicial corruption. Now it
affects the quality of medical care.

What's next?

Richard S. Kerr, M.D.
Morgantown