A Letter To Governor Ducey on Opioids Problem

Governor Ducey June 30^th 2017

I fear the violence we saw at the Las Vegas pain clinic on Thursday will be coming to Arizona soon. What physicians are doing to thousands of pain patients is wrong and will cause more pain and suffering, and I’m sure more suicides and violence will follow.

Physicians like Dr Benjamin Venger are reducing patient’s medications based on fake news and without medical justification leaving patients to turn to the street for illegal drugs, or end the pain like the patient Thursday.

At my last visit May 26^th with my pain management physician Dr Benjamin Venger in Fort Mohave he tried to reduce my medications again like he has to all his patients, again I told him DEA didn't do it.

I told Dr Venger that I had spoke to DEA in Washington D.C., and the agent said DEA does not tell physicians what or how much medications to prescribe, and “that any change to a patient medication must be based on medical necessity and not on policy”.

When I told Dr Venger that the 2016 CDC pain treatment guidelines were for primary care physicians, not pain specialists, I was stunned by his answer. Dr Venger said “I know, but its gone social now”.

I have no idea what a subject “going social” has to do with the medical treatment of patients. When I told people at DEA, the FDA, and the CDC that physicians were lowering patient doses because of “social media” and not medical necessary many were speechless.

The Director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control Dr Debra Houry said in her response that the CDC “believes patients deserve safe and effective pain management. The Guideline also helps providers and patients—together—assess the benefits and risks of opioid use”

Dr Hourly went on to say “the recommendation to taper or reduce dosage is only for when patient harm outweighs patient benefit of opioid therapy”. 

Reducing the dose of opioids without regard for tolerance, dependence or medical necessity as individual patient is NOT in line with the 2016 CDC pain guideline.

As the benefits of opioid therapy outweigh the risks for many individual patients’ physicians must document the medical necessity of any dose reductions or they need to face disciplinary action when patients harm themselves or others because of lack of pain control.

It’s sad when someone abuses opioids and overdoses.

It’s tragic when a pain patient must take their life for lack of proper pain management.

Jay Fleming, Speaker

Dolan Springs Arizona

Law Enforcement Action Partnership

Advancing Justice and Public Safety Solutions

LawEnforcementActionPartnership.org

Overdoses Will Continue to Rise Along With Pain Patient Suicides in 2017

As physicians reduce the doses without medical justification for long time opioid patients who have built a tolerance over years patients will be forced to the street or worse, give up the fight. 

We need to monitor the death of any patient who has been under the care of a pain management physician within the previous year. 

It's to easy to write off a pain patients who overdoses as an abuser, when the real reason is they were not given enough medication to control their pain, so they save enough to end the pain.

Pain management physicians like the one I see are reducing patients doses even thought it goes against recommendations in the FDA 2016 Pain Guidelines.

When I told my pain management physician that DEA had no mandate to reduce medications, and what he was referring to was a 2016 CDC pain guideline for family practitioners, not pain specialists. He said that "he knew, but now its gone social”.

Like somehow what DEA and the FDA were saying meant nothing and social media was telling physicians what and how to prescribe medications.

First it's fake news and now physicians are ruled by social media rather than medical boards the FDA and DEA. 

The United States has a little over 300,000,000 people, 100,000,000 suffer chronic pain on a daily basis, and we're getting older. Most people I talk to are not afraid to die, they are afraid to die in pain.