DIDN'T PROTECT US

There seems to be a great deal of excitement and some jubilation over the
manslaughter conviction of Dr. James Graves. As a professional who has
worked with drug addicts for over 20 years, I am not elated - I am
saddened. If the only way to stop a physician from prescribing drugs that
are sold on the street or misused and abused is to charge him with
manslaughter then we are in a lot of trouble as a society. "Why was Dr.
Graves not stopped earlier?" is the real question.

Does the Florida medical association never remove a license from a
physician even when he is practicing dangerous or quack medicine?
Professionals in any other regulated field would have been sanctioned
before it reached a criminal stage, yet this doctor was allowed to continue
to write prescriptions for drugs that were being sold on the street long
before action was taken. Did the DEA not know that this was a prescription
mill? Should they have revoked his privilege much sooner?

We should be troubled because our regulators have not protected us.

Don G. Brown, Gulf Breeze