HARD TIME AN EASY CALL

Our view: Using a medical license to facilitate and profit from drug
dealing warranted a tough sentence.

Bucks County Judge David Heckler last week sent a surprisingly tough and
unmistakable message to would-be wayward doctors: use your access to
addictive drugs as a means of enrichment and you'll do hard time. That's
what Dr. Richard Paolino will be doing - for at least 30 years.

Paolino, of Bensalem, was selling prescriptions of OxyContin, a heroin-like
painkiller, for $1,500. On the street, the highly addictive drug was going
for $80 a pill. In one year alone, Paolino prescribed 88,602 doses of the
stuff. He was on an even heavier and more lethal pace two years ago, when
he prescribed 53,000 doses in the five months before his arrest.

Despite those incredible numbers and the obvious role he played in
facilitating drug abuse and victimizing others, Paolino claimed to be a
victim himself. In a pre-sentence interview he told court officials that
his arrest and conviction was the result of OxyContin hype. He accepted
responsibility only for a "non-criminal mistake in judgment."

Incredible!

Minus any remorse or admission that what he did was criminal, Judge Heckler
was right to hand Paolino a tough sentence. It was warranted, the judge
reasoned, not only because of the drug abuse Paolino encouraged, but to
discourage other doctors from likewise cashing in on the special access to
drugs that a medical license provides.

Said one sympathetic patient, his faith in Paolino unshaken: "I can't find
another doctor like him."

Let's hope not.