FDA, DEA TOO SLOW TO ACT

The federal government is a mishmash of belated contradictions when
it comes to the regulation of medicine. Its various stances aren't
helping prevent drug abuse or overdoses, and they aren't helping ease
patients' pain.

In April, White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske unhelpfully suggested
Congress require special training for doctors before they can
prescribe powerful pain-fighting medication such as OxyContin.

People at the forefront of addiction are aware that the rising
culprit at the center of overdose deaths, abuse and crime these days
is hydrocodone, since oxycodone is more difficult to get.

That's why addiction experts and doctors have urged the Food and Drug
Administration since the early 1990s to make hydrocodone a Schedule
II drug (like oxycodone), which are much more strictly controlled
than Schedule III drugs. Doctors say hydrocodone's potency was
misunderstood, and it was a terrible mistake to list it as Schedule
III , the Associated Press reported.

In March, a month before Kerlikowske's suggestion, 58 members of
Congress, frustrated by the lack of action, filed a bill to allow the
FDA and the Drug Endorcement Administration to bypass the usual
rules-making process in order to adopt tougher controls on hydrocodone.

Here at home, the state passed its own pain medication law, which
some say is so restrictive and burdensome that doctors are dropping
patients rather than deal with the bureaucracy and the chance of
being sued, or investigated by the FDA, the Seattle Times reported.

After years of requests, the DEA agreed to review hydrocodone in
1999. Twelve years later, the agencies say they are still in the
preliminary stages, AP reported earlier this month.

"It's the nature of the process; it takes time," said FDA spokeswoman
Shelly Burgess.

The government isn't always so slow in its pronouncements, or its hypocrisy.

In 2006, the FDA announced that "no sound scientific studies"
supported the medical use of marijuana, contradicting the findings of
a 1999 review by a panel of highly regarded scientists, the New York
Times reported.

Under federal law, marijuana -- which is not physically addicting and
has caused no known overdose deaths -- remains a Schedule 1
substance, like heroin and cocaine, despite sound evidence for its
many medical applications. For example, marijuana works on pain,
especially neuropathic pain, or peripheral neuropathy, a particularly
difficult condition to treat.

If the federal government based decisions on science, hydrocodone
would be a Schedule II drug, and marijuana would be Schedule III, or
less. And doctors would be allowed to decide, without fear of
lawsuits or criminal charges, what best to prescribe to their patients.