STATE STATUTE SHOULD GIVE EXCEPTION TO PAIN PATIENTS

Re: Prosecutors need to drop pursuit of pain patient, March 10 letter

Editor: True, prosecutors should have backed off their pursuit of Richard
Paey. But Paey is not the first chronic pain patient in the Pinellas-Pasco
Circuit to be prosecuted for using more Percocet than his physician was
willing to prescribe, and he won't be the last.

The root cause of this problem is Chapter 893 of the Florida Statutes
because it does not carve out an exception for chronic pain patients. It
lets the sheriff - not the physician - decide if the patient is using too
much painkiller. How crazy is that? Another crazy aspect of Chapter 893 is
that it calculates the sentence by the weight of the entire pill, although
Percocet is 98.5 percent Tylenol (acetaminophen)!

For these crazy laws, we have only ourselves to blame for not paying
attention. The Paey case is an opportunity for sanity: Tell prosecutors to
put Paey on house arrest, and tell our legislators to fix Chapter 893.

- -- John Chase, Palm Harbor