N.C. DOCTOR WAITING TO HEAR WHETHER HE WILL FACE CHARGES

In December 2001, one doctor in one obscure little Cleveland County
town hit the big time, publicity-wise, when the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration focused its "war on drugs" lens on his tiny
office in Grover. Dr. Joseph Talley had long been the subject of
controversy, the target of inquiries from state medical board members
and one of the most sought-after prescribers of pain-killing narcotics
not only in the region, but across the country.

Talley said his following flocked to him for help they could get
nowhere else. Skeptical authorities said they came to get powerful
drugs, such as Oxycontin, he dispensed too freely.

Scarcely a year later, the 65-year-old self-styled specialist in
chronic, intractable pain, had his prescribing rights pulled in
January by the DEA. He also lost his medical license, stripped of it
in March by N.C. Medical Board members who said he failed to follow
established procedures and do proper follow-up care.

He has no practice, saying he has spent countless hours begging other
doctors to take patients who had come to him saying he was their only
hope.

And, he says, he has little hope of recovering either the license or
the practice.

Retreating to his woodworking shop where he hand-carves trains and
other moving "toys," he waits.

Will federal charges, criminal charges, be filed against him? Will he
be tried, found guilty and go to prison?

As early as 1998, Talley wrote to the chairman of the N.C. Medical
Board complaint committee that this is "a showdown that needs to happen."

"What will happen to me is happening all across the country," Talley
said recently, "with perversion of justice on a scale that borders on
the unbelievable. The result is that all doctors who care about pain
are pulling back or getting out."

He cites examples, and several of them have been the subjects of
national news coverage.

One Virginia news editor called the investigations of doctors such as
Talley "war crimes against patients."

Federal investigators will not comment on their investigation.

Talley said he has no idea when any results will be
announced.

"They'll just show up at the door one day," he said.

One of his attorneys, Lyle Yurko, said that doctors, patients and law
enforcement are not the only players in the game.

"It is impossible to talk about drug policy in a neutral, detached
way," Yurko said, "and it's very difficult to have a rational
discussion about these issues. There are some things that the feds do
that are just crazy.

"There has been created an anti-controlled substance industrial
complex - whole hosts of industries that are dependent on drugs being
hard to get - and it's a juggernaut that's very hard to stop."