DOCTOR'S PUNISHMENT NOT ENOUGH

Methamphetamine -- with its witch's brew of chemical ingredients,
explosion-prone secret laboratories and highly-addictive nature -- steals
the headlines.

It is a scourge worth fighting, but it isn't the region's only drug problem.
It isn't even the biggest one.

That honor goes to a sneakier enemy: prescription drug abuse. As during the
height of the OxyContin epidemic a few years ago, misused prescription
narcotics still cause most of the region's overdose deaths and make up the
bulk of drug-related criminal cases in many counties.

Against that backdrop, one would assume that a doctor convicted of
prescribing unneeded narcotics in exchange for sexual favors would spend
some time behind bars. Or, at the very least, that he would not be allowed
to continue to practice medicine.

That isn't the case with Bristol dermatologist, Dr. Robert Morris Glasgow.
Despite pleading guilty to five counts of illegally prescribing the
painkiller Lortab, he will not go to jail or prison and he won't lose his
medical license. Instead, he will spend four years on probation and he has
already paid a $10,000 fine. He won't be able to prescribe narcotics, but he
can keep treating patients until he retires.

The cynical assessment of his punishment: A mere slap on the wrist that
trivializes the prescription drug abuse problem and downplays the good
doctor's place in the drug-dealing chain.

Glasgow wrote the prescriptions that supplied drugs to two women who worked
in his office. At a minimum, he was feeding their addictions. Worse, he had
no way of knowing if they would sell the illicitly- prescribed drugs on the
street.

When the OxyContin problem was at its height, federal prosecutors in
Virginia, and elsewhere, cracked down by targeting the doctors who
prescribed the drugs improperly. Law enforcement officers say the supply of
OxyContin available "on the street" decreased as a result.

The get-tough approach to OxyContin didn't end the region's drug problems.
No single law enforcement method has that power, but rather a comprehensive
approach -- including more drug treatment programs -- is needed.

Still, it sends the wrong message to allow a doctor -- perhaps by virtue of
his age, profession and status in the community -- to pay such a trivial
price. No doubt, there were extenuating circumstances that led the judge to
rule as he did, but there are sad facts in virtually all drug-related
criminal cases.

At a minimum, the state should strip Glasgow of his medical license. And, in
the future, the courts should deal more sternly with doctors who betray
their Hippocratic oath to do no harm by fueling drug addiction.