MOUNT UNIACKE MD MUST BE DRUG-FREE FOR 6 MONTHS

A Mount Uniacke doctor whose licence was suspended in May must
complete an in-patient rehabilitation program and prove he can stay
off drugs for six months before he's allowed to return to medicine..

Dr. David Russell must also pay $30,000 toward the cost of the
investigations and hearings that led to his suspension by the College
of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia.

That censure resulted from his failing a series of drugs tests that
were a condition of his reinstatement after an earlier suspension in
2005.

Four separate urine tests administered earlier this year after Dr.
Russell returned from that suspension showed he had consumed marijuana
or a related substance.

The conditions released by the college Thursday stipulate Dr. Russell
must make himself available for and pass up to 15 random urine tests
before he can ask for his licence back and must continue to come up
clean on tests for five years.

The hearing committee, led by Halifax lawyer Michael Wood, said Dr.
Russell was primarily responsible for the length and costs of the
proceeding because he denied using drugs despite the positive tests.

The $30,000 he must pay is in addition to more than $20,000 he still
owes for costs of the earlier disciplinary process.

Dr. Russell was suspended in November 2005, part of the fallout of a
substance abuse problem that culminated in his passing out at work in
January 2004 after taking a combination of morphine and barbiturates.