aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, January 30, 2006

Pain & the police state II

Also last night on 60 Minutes, the story of Richard Paey who I first heard of last spring on Nightline.

Timely, given my recent pain concerns. (Unfounded, as it turns out.)

Paey is serving a 25 year jail sentence for drug trafficking when no evidence was presented that he ever sold his pain medications to anyone and the doctor Paey says gave him undated prescriptions changed his story. Prosecutors say Paey couldn’t possibly have used the drugs himself. Pain experts disagree:

[Dr. Russell] Portnoy, among the most eminent pain specialists in the country, says that Paey’s behavior - wanting to ensure a steady stream of pain killers - is not unusual among patients in severe pain.

“It really sounds like society used a mallet to try to handle a problem that required a much more subtle approach,” says Portnoy. “If they had taken this man who had engaged in behaviors that were unacceptable and treated it as a medical issue, it seems like this patient would have had better pain control and a functional life instead of being in prison.”

Ironically, Richard Paey now gets all the drugs he needs. The state of Florida pays for a morphine pump which delivers a constant stream of medication directly to his spine, providing him with pain relief at doses more powerful than the drugs he was taking when he was arrested.

To contact Richard Paey or to learn more about his appeal, contact the Pain Relief Network.

Is it too much too ask that we err on the side of pain killers as medicinal relief from suffering rather than arresting sufferers as criminal narcotics traffickers?

[U]nder Florida law, the possession of just one bottle of illegally obtained painkillers - just 28 grams - is considered drug trafficking, which carries a higher penalty than trafficking in much larger amounts of cocaine.