DOCTORS SHOULD WORK ON REFORMING DRUG POLICY

The local physicians convicted of prescription fraud were despicably
unprofessional and offer little in mitigation except incredible naivete in
believing their actions would go unnoticed. The Sun News correctly notes
that "ordinary" pushers receive stiff sentences ("Clinic Doctors No Better
Than Pushers," Feb. 26), but decades-long imprisonment for such drug
offenses merits no more respect as justice than do these doctors as healers.

Today's drug policy barely maintains linkage to reality, much less social
hygiene or law and order. Instead, it is a gravy train driven by arrogant
bureaucrats and opportunistic politicians who gull unsophisticated voters
into handing them ever more authority and largesse. Addressing failure by
redoubling it perpetuates this cycle to their advantage. Reform hasn't
penetrated this racket since inception.

Indifferent doctors should consider that public outcry over the mass
incarceration of poor and nonwhite drug offenders has prompted drug
authorities to find new victims among affluent whites, in a pretense of
balancing the scales. Accordingly, the recent crackdown on rogue physicians
carries a hidden agenda of misleading the public that doctors' malfeasance
exclusively underlies prescription drug abuse, shamelessly exploiting class
resentment to this end.

Already, the Drug Enforcement Administration is proposing to double
physicians' registration fees, heralding more scrutiny and harassment of
doctors who prescribe narcotics. Rather than meekly acquiescing, doctors
would better serve their own and the public's interest by exposing the
underlying corruption and joining the call for broad reforms based on
humanitarian principles and social welfare.