" Pain killer "
November 05, 2003
By Mat Herron
Staff Writer: snitch.com
The suffering stumble into Murphy Pain Center seeking sweet relief.
Their ailments are acute, chronic and everything in between: Joints hamstrung by arthritis, near-crippling spinal cord injuries, shattered bones and spirits.
It is Murphy – Dr. James Murphy, that is – who helps them cope. “I believe this is a mission,” says the anesthesiologist, who discusses pain treatment like most people discuss first loves.
A former Navy flight surgeon, Murphy is the number one prescriber of narcotic medicine in Jefferson County. He proudly volunteers this tidbit of info, despite his mother’s admonitions.
But addicts who think the good doctor is an easy mark for Methadone, hydrocodone or the current scourge of Appalachia, OxyContin, should prepare for disappointment. Murphy Pain Center is not a drug mill.
“If you’re looking for drugs,” he says, “you’re coming to the wrong place.”
When the center opened its doors in January 2000, one of the first accoutrements Murphy added was a sign in black lettering: “No narcotics or controlled substances are stored on these premises.” They stay at the pharmacy.
If — and only if — you withstand the rigorous interviews, checklists, urine drug screen, reams of paperwork and the doctor’s up close and personal scrutiny of your medical records, will you get pills … but not on the first visit. As an added precaution, Murphy advises his LPNs, RNs and staff to assume each of his 1,200 patients is an undercover DEA agent.
Neither he nor his staff has been physically threatened, but Murphy says he doesn’t want to tempt fate. He posts the guidelines spelled out by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure next to the sign-in window. He’s a member of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators and refers to Metro Narcotics detectives as “friends.”
It’s either that or grow accustomed to flashed badges, clicking handcuffs, mugshots on the 6 o’clock news or worse: inadvertently put drugs in the hands of the wrong person. “Whenever I prescribe narcotics, I’m treating two patients,” Murphy says, “the patient in front of me and the kid on the street.”
Unintended consequences
Murphy and other pain management professionals know caution is the name of the game these days.
Prescription drug abuse was a thorny issue long before Rush Limbaugh confessed to popping pills. Emergency room visits resulting from the use of opiates rose 117 percent from 1994 to 2001, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network.
Methadone, commonly used to ween smack addicts off heroin, has become a pariah and was the subject of a Snitch-WAVE3 investigative report last May.
Nationwide, more than 120 people have died from overdose on OxyContin, or oxycodone, an opium derivative. Addicts crush and snort, or dilute and inject, for a heroin-like high. One pill may go for $20-$40 on the street.
From Nov. 1, 2002, to Oct. 31, 2003, about 25 percent of the 2,600 charges brought by the narcotics unit of the Commonwealth Attorney’s office were prescription-related, said Shane Young, the chief drug prosecutor in Jefferson County.
“The majority of what we see is OxyContin and hydrocodone,” Young said. “I don’t know if it’s a problem that’s getting bigger, but it’s definitely one we’re paying a lot more attention to.”
Dealers who relied on cocaine as their bread and butter have shifted to OxyContin and oxycodone, he said. “That’s why we’re trying to shut down the market.”
Local trafficking in OxyContin is mainly tied to “doctor shopping,” when addicts who obtain prescription forms from several doctors then hit the pharmacies. Doctors like Murphy use the KASPER (Kentucky All Scheduled Electronic Reporting) system, which tracks controlled substances prescribed statewide.
But, says Murphy, the negative publicity has compelled more and more patients to shy away from the drug, fearing they, too, will be caught in a web of addiction.
“I have CEOs of companies and professional athletes who come here,” Murphy says. “There are patients that really need this therapy and will not take it.”
The bad press has also generated myths about narcotics. An estimated one in 10 people have a genetic predisposition to become addicted to medications, but, Murphy says, “You are at an extremely low risk of addiction if you take the medicine for the right reasons.”
The second myth is that patients must take higher and higher doses. In fact, Murphy said, the condition of a patient treated with narcotics tends to stabilize over time, unless the disease worsens.
Finally, “narcotics are safer than Tylenol; they’re safer than Motrin,” he said. Only when they’re abused can they prove fatal.
Steven Passik, director of the symptom management and palliative care program at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center, who consults with the FDA and has helped treat drug addicts, experienced the stigma firsthand.
When he went to the pharmacy to fill a Methadone prescription for an injury, “an intern takes it and yells out to the other pharmacists, ‘another Schedule II prescription!’”
One of Passik’s patients, who has terminal cancer and lives in Southeastern Kentucky, has his family keep his OxyContin under lock and key because he’s afraid someone will steal it.
Passik said he has consulted with pain specialists and doctors to understand how to treat pain without running afoul of the law. “They’re all scrambling,” he said. “There’s a lot of public outcry. It’s very frightening to see doctors led away in handcuffs. That’s very chilling.”
Police and doctors might be approaching the problem of prescription drug abuse in different ways. There might be one doctor in Eastern Kentucky who’s the only medical professional for 150 miles, who might think he or she is doing the right thing.
What he doesn’t want is patients living with pain because of irrational fear of addiction, and doctors not treating it so they can preserve their licenses.
“The pendulum swung pretty far toward treating pain for a while,” said Passik, who fears that the recent spate of prosecutions will send it back the other way and people will suffer needlessly.
“I’m just hoping that we can kind of catch it in the middle. In the bad old days, you had to be dying of cancer with six months to live.”
Link
November 05, 2003
By Mat Herron
Staff Writer: snitch.com
The suffering stumble into Murphy Pain Center seeking sweet relief.
Their ailments are acute, chronic and everything in between: Joints hamstrung by arthritis, near-crippling spinal cord injuries, shattered bones and spirits.
It is Murphy – Dr. James Murphy, that is – who helps them cope. “I believe this is a mission,” says the anesthesiologist, who discusses pain treatment like most people discuss first loves.
A former Navy flight surgeon, Murphy is the number one prescriber of narcotic medicine in Jefferson County. He proudly volunteers this tidbit of info, despite his mother’s admonitions.
But addicts who think the good doctor is an easy mark for Methadone, hydrocodone or the current scourge of Appalachia, OxyContin, should prepare for disappointment. Murphy Pain Center is not a drug mill.
“If you’re looking for drugs,” he says, “you’re coming to the wrong place.”
When the center opened its doors in January 2000, one of the first accoutrements Murphy added was a sign in black lettering: “No narcotics or controlled substances are stored on these premises.” They stay at the pharmacy.
If — and only if — you withstand the rigorous interviews, checklists, urine drug screen, reams of paperwork and the doctor’s up close and personal scrutiny of your medical records, will you get pills … but not on the first visit. As an added precaution, Murphy advises his LPNs, RNs and staff to assume each of his 1,200 patients is an undercover DEA agent.
Neither he nor his staff has been physically threatened, but Murphy says he doesn’t want to tempt fate. He posts the guidelines spelled out by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure next to the sign-in window. He’s a member of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators and refers to Metro Narcotics detectives as “friends.”
It’s either that or grow accustomed to flashed badges, clicking handcuffs, mugshots on the 6 o’clock news or worse: inadvertently put drugs in the hands of the wrong person. “Whenever I prescribe narcotics, I’m treating two patients,” Murphy says, “the patient in front of me and the kid on the street.”
Unintended consequences
Murphy and other pain management professionals know caution is the name of the game these days.
Prescription drug abuse was a thorny issue long before Rush Limbaugh confessed to popping pills. Emergency room visits resulting from the use of opiates rose 117 percent from 1994 to 2001, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network.
Methadone, commonly used to ween smack addicts off heroin, has become a pariah and was the subject of a Snitch-WAVE3 investigative report last May.
Nationwide, more than 120 people have died from overdose on OxyContin, or oxycodone, an opium derivative. Addicts crush and snort, or dilute and inject, for a heroin-like high. One pill may go for $20-$40 on the street.
From Nov. 1, 2002, to Oct. 31, 2003, about 25 percent of the 2,600 charges brought by the narcotics unit of the Commonwealth Attorney’s office were prescription-related, said Shane Young, the chief drug prosecutor in Jefferson County.
“The majority of what we see is OxyContin and hydrocodone,” Young said. “I don’t know if it’s a problem that’s getting bigger, but it’s definitely one we’re paying a lot more attention to.”
Dealers who relied on cocaine as their bread and butter have shifted to OxyContin and oxycodone, he said. “That’s why we’re trying to shut down the market.”
Local trafficking in OxyContin is mainly tied to “doctor shopping,” when addicts who obtain prescription forms from several doctors then hit the pharmacies. Doctors like Murphy use the KASPER (Kentucky All Scheduled Electronic Reporting) system, which tracks controlled substances prescribed statewide.
But, says Murphy, the negative publicity has compelled more and more patients to shy away from the drug, fearing they, too, will be caught in a web of addiction.
“I have CEOs of companies and professional athletes who come here,” Murphy says. “There are patients that really need this therapy and will not take it.”
The bad press has also generated myths about narcotics. An estimated one in 10 people have a genetic predisposition to become addicted to medications, but, Murphy says, “You are at an extremely low risk of addiction if you take the medicine for the right reasons.”
The second myth is that patients must take higher and higher doses. In fact, Murphy said, the condition of a patient treated with narcotics tends to stabilize over time, unless the disease worsens.
Finally, “narcotics are safer than Tylenol; they’re safer than Motrin,” he said. Only when they’re abused can they prove fatal.
Steven Passik, director of the symptom management and palliative care program at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center, who consults with the FDA and has helped treat drug addicts, experienced the stigma firsthand.
When he went to the pharmacy to fill a Methadone prescription for an injury, “an intern takes it and yells out to the other pharmacists, ‘another Schedule II prescription!’”
One of Passik’s patients, who has terminal cancer and lives in Southeastern Kentucky, has his family keep his OxyContin under lock and key because he’s afraid someone will steal it.
Passik said he has consulted with pain specialists and doctors to understand how to treat pain without running afoul of the law. “They’re all scrambling,” he said. “There’s a lot of public outcry. It’s very frightening to see doctors led away in handcuffs. That’s very chilling.”
Police and doctors might be approaching the problem of prescription drug abuse in different ways. There might be one doctor in Eastern Kentucky who’s the only medical professional for 150 miles, who might think he or she is doing the right thing.
What he doesn’t want is patients living with pain because of irrational fear of addiction, and doctors not treating it so they can preserve their licenses.
“The pendulum swung pretty far toward treating pain for a while,” said Passik, who fears that the recent spate of prosecutions will send it back the other way and people will suffer needlessly.
“I’m just hoping that we can kind of catch it in the middle. In the bad old days, you had to be dying of cancer with six months to live.”
Link
