RULES IMPEDE TREATMENT FOR DRUG ABUSERS

Psychiatrist Claude A. Curran just couldn't fathom why the federal
government would bar him from prescribing opiate-weaning buprenorphine to
more than 30 of the OxyContin and heroin addicts who flood his Fall River
practice. So he simply ignored the law.

"I have to present myself to Hippocrates after I am dead and buried," said
Curran, who once had 600 patients on the opiate pill, which inhibits
narcotics cravings without getting patients high. "I try to give my
patients hope."

A little more than two months ago, federal law prevented individual
practices from treating more than 30 patients with buprenorphine drugs at
one time. The law was so restrictive, it did not distinguish among
hospitals, health organizations and single-physician organizations --
creating long waiting lists at treatment centers where certified doctors
practiced.

For a while, Curran was able to administer the drug to hundreds of
unauthorized patients -- dispensing up to 48,000 pills a month -- because
he was seeking a license to open a methadone clinic. Then the state Board
of Registration in Medicine and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
intervened.

"When I received a phone call on December 13, 2003, advising me that they
were aware that I had exceeded the 30-patient cap, the next girl that comes
in is a 19-year-old heroin addict with a 2-month baby. She says, 'If I
can't get on buprenorphine I'm going to lose my baby because I'm
prostituting to get high,' " said Curran.

DEA and Board of Registration in Medicine officials said no disciplinary
action was taken against Curran, who said he is in compliance with the new
federal law allowing a single doctor to treat 30 patients at one time after
passing a certification course.

Regulators sought the 30-patient limit to prevent any one physician from
prescribing mass quantities of a drug they classify as carrying a
"potential for abuse."

"It was very disturbing from a professional point of view to have a doctor
who's putting the community at risk by doing something that puts the whole
clinical paradigm at risk," said Dr. Daniel Alford, medical director at the
Boston Public Health Commission's methadone maintenance program.