DEA ACCUSED OF TARGETING PAIN DOCTORS

The Drug Enforcement Administration unfairly targets doctors who
prescribe narcotic painkillers - including a Billings neurologist - as
a means to justify its existence to the federal government, said a
national chronic pain management advocate during a visit to Billings
on Wednesday.

"What the DEA does is sell drug prosecutions to Congress to say, 'Look
what we're doing about the drug problem,' " said Siobhan Reynolds,
president of the Pain Relief Network.

It is a "desperate effort by an endangered federal agency," she
said.

Instead of addressing the nation's drug problem, the DEA prevents
physicians from adequately treating patients who suffer from chronic
pain, Reynolds said.

The New York City-based advocate traveled to Billings this week to
meet with Dr. Richard A. Nelson, a local neurologist whose office was
raided by the DEA in April.

Bill Weinman, a DEA spokesman in Denver, referred to an agency mission
statement when asked to respond to Reynolds' allegations.

The mission statement tasks DEA investigators with "preventing,
detecting and investigating the diversion of pharmaceutically
controlled substances and listed chemicals from legitimate channels
while ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply of (them) to meet
legitimate medical, commercial and scientific needs," Weinman said.

In an interview on Wednesday, Nelson said DEA agents told him that his
practice had been selected for an administrative review. They took 72
patient files, which were returned 10 days later, and have not
contacted him again.

"We haven't heard anything," Nelson said. "It has been as much a
surprise to me as to anyone that we were selected to be evaluated."

Nelson treated several dozen patients suffering from chronic pain with
opioids, the medical term for narcotic painkillers. The DEA
temporarily revoked his privilege to write prescriptions for those
drugs, forcing his patients to seek prescriptions elsewhere, but he
remains in good standing with the Montana Board of Medical Examiners.
The board first licensed him in 1970.

Trained as a general practitioner, Nelson specialized in neurology
because he was interested in how the body works. He began treating
patients with chronic pain only a couple of years ago.

"I wasn't taking it on with the idea that I was doing anything
special," he said.

Many doctors refuse to treat chronic-pain patients. Some physicians
are uncomfortable treating pain because it is not easily defined,
while others fear being investigated by DEA.

"The DEA has invested a great deal of energy in working against
doctors in terms of policing what the doctors are doing instead of
what people are doing on the street," Nelson said.

Physicians who do accept pain patients often will not prescribe
narcotics. Nelson said he prescribed them while counseling his
patients against them.

"Taking medications and tablets is not going to change the underlying
anatomy, but it will block the pain," he said. "You can take these
medications for two, three, four years, but you are, No. 1, not
changing the anatomy, and, No. 2, building tolerances."

Nelson said he encouraged his patients to seek other treatments,
including surgery.

"We try to move them along" away from opioids, he said.

But convincing a patient who has had a failed surgery - as many of his
patients have - to submit to another one is difficult, he said.

No formal allegations or charges have been made against Nelson, but
his case is getting national attention. A reporter from Time magazine
interviewed the doctor and several of his patients in Billings on
Wednesday, as did a documentary filmmaker.

And Reynolds is spending several days in Billings talking with Nelson,
his patients and politicians.

"My hope is to engage the state of Montana in an effort to reclaim
Montana's sovereignty over the regulation of Montana physicians,"
Reynolds said. "Politicians at the top of the state of Montana need to
wake up and see their turf is being trampled on and their police power
trumped."

Reynolds thinks Montanans are more likely than other Americans to
stand up to what she calls an abuse of power by the DEA. The state's
residents are independent spirited and tend to frown upon federal
intervention, she said.

Mike Bledsoe, a patient of Nelson's who suffers chronic pain from a
work-related injury, said he hopes drawing attention to the DEA
investigation will educate doctors and the public about pain.

"I would like to see a change in the medical community's attitude
toward treating people with chronic pain with opioids," Bledsoe said.
"I hope somebody's going to hear us and look into this."

Nelson also hopes to effect change. He said Billings needs a chronic
pain management center.

The center would be "much like an emergency room but it would be for
pain … where a person with chronic pain can go day or night," he said.
"It could avoid the many problems our patients have had where suddenly
their doctor is not available to give them medications."

Find out more

Siobhan Reynolds founded the Pain Relief Network in 2002 after
watching her husband experience chronic pain as a symptom of
Ehlers/Danlos Syndrome, a congenital connective tissue disorder.

Her 13-year-old son also has the disorder.

The Internet-based organization claims a total 2,200 members from all
50 states, including pain sufferers and their family members,
physicians and lawyers.

The Web site is http://www.painreliefnetwork.org.