A small piece of good news in the war on pain patients

Posted on November 6, 2005 by Pete Guither

Thanks to Adam, (and I see that Libby at Last One Speaks has already covered this, but it’s important) —
The Washington Post reported yesterday that the DEA has been stripped of one of its roles:

A House-Senate conference committee yesterday dropped a controversial provision that gave the Drug Enforcement Administration authority to review, and potentially block, the sale of all new prescription narcotics.

The legislation, promoted by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and attached to a multi-department appropriations bill, passed last year with little notice. But this year the Food and Drug Administration, many drug makers and doctors who treat pain patients objected to renewing it, and the provision was stripped from the bill.

Opponents said the provision was an unwarranted intrusion by a law enforcement agency into the FDA’s drug-review system. Pain specialists also said the DEA reviews could jeopardize development of new drugs needed by patients with chronic pain.

Are people waking up? Realizing that the DEA has no business inserting itself in medical issues? I give a significant amount of credit for this to Radley Balko and others who have been reaching a lot of decision makers with their articles about the DEA’s abuses.
(Of course, there are still a lot of roles that we need to strip from the DEA.)

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