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Today's Stories

July 31, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Kerry: He's the (Any) One

July 30, 2004

Kolhatkar / Ingalls
Shattering Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not Wanted

Dave Lindorff
Murder Not So Foul?

Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice

Fidel Castro
The Pathology of George W. Bush

Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist

Saul Landau
Bush Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave


Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden

CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase

 

July 29, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
Hail, the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam

Frank Bardacke
What Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11

Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan

Ron Jacobs
Kerry and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture

Robert Fisk
The Unreported War

Lichtman / Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)

William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure

CounterPunch Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!

Website of the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness

 

 

July 28, 2004

Robert Fisk
The Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of the Dead

Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine

Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root Causes

United for Peace & Justice
An Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots

Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face Impeachment Mvt."

Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter

Alexander Cockburn
Candidate Kerry

Website of the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War


July 27, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Why the Democrats Deserve Nader

Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!

Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera

Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez

Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs

Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then the Sweatshops

Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The 9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine; Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism

 

 

July 26, 2004

Todd Chretien
Green Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin

Robert Fisk
Terror by Video

Richard Forno
Security Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing Flaws at the Fleet Center

Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious

Richard Moreno
Rockers for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian

Alexander Cockburn
Boston Awaits a Dead Party

 

 

July 24 / 25, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions: Part One

Dennis Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush

Patrick Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning

Josh Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject the Peace Movement

Justin E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin American Experience

Tariq Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela

Fred Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the Antagonist

Mark Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope

Ron Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie Fire Statement...35 Years On

 

 

July 23, 2004

Lee Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years On

Dave Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters 0

Saul Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush Beats Reagan

Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No One

Mickey Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth Jennings

Gary Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming War on Iran

 

July 22, 2004

M. Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat

Brian McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon

Jason Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While CEO of Halliburton

Chris Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths

Uri Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon

 

July 21, 2004

Paula J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War: Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage

Joshua Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's be Fair

Ron Jacobs
American Exceptionalism

Reza Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda

Amy Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?

John Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go On and On

 

July 20, 2004

Stan Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket

Chris Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!

Forrest Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum

Mark Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the Rest of California

Sam Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door

George Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb

John Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush

John L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.

Website of the Day
This Land is Your Land

 

 

July 19, 2004

Uri Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of Paris

Col. Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?

Mike Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol

Karyn Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage

Robert Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad

David Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition to Iraq War

Jennifer van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty

 

July 17 / 18, 2004

Gary Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is Must Reading

Ghada Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians

Lenni Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader

Ben Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story

Brandy Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?

M. Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA

Patrick Bond
The George Bush of Africa

Fred Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics

William Blum
Bush and Thucydides

Ben Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong with a General Running the Country"

Tom Barry
John Lehman on the War Path

David Vest
Dylan Without the Music

Phyllis Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons

Ron Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out

Joshua Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"

David Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot

Toni Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum

Landau, Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911

Poets's Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert

 

 

July 16, 2004

Dave Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up

Shervan Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws

Ron Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War Plank

Robert Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Coffin Bombs in Baghdad

Greg Moses
The Forts of Iraq

Mickey Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV

Dan Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes

Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP, But a Movement in Shambles

Paul McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?

Website of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)

 

 

July 15, 2004

Heather Williams
McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message

Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money

Tom Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo

Brian Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?

Bill Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But...

 

July 14, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers

Neve Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall

Diane Christian
The Priesthood of Death

Stefan Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?

Josh Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate

Conn Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education

Website of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire

 

 

July 13, 2004

Ray McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse

Mark Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney

Ben Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates?

Mark Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!

Chris White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination

 

 

July 10 / 12, 2004

Kathleen Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel

Janine Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War

Sherry Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader

Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of

Michael Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004

Stanton / Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?

Richard Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology

Gila Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall

Kurt Nimmo
Clinton's Life

Toni Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means

Ron Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest

Camelo Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize

Omar Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance

Poets' Basement
Curtis and Albert

 

July 9, 2004

Dave Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War

Justin Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America

Robert Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency

Boris Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral

William S. Lind
The October Surprises

Sibel Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth

Ron Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future

Gary Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link

 

July 8, 2004

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain

Toufic Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent

Dave Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law

Joshua Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean

Christopher Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card

James Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter

 

July 7, 2004

John Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning

Virginia Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike

Susan Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby

Mickey Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade

Michael Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire

Sean Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown

Diane Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq

 

July 6, 2004

Lisa Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte

Marc Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants

James Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?

Ray McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?

William Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...

 

July 5, 2004

Forrest Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture

Chris White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day

Joe Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July

Robert Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire

Kathy Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"

 

July 3 / 4, 2004

Elaine Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence Day

Stan Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti

Snehal Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out

Bruce Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens

Sharon Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"

Josh Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates

Robert Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing

Joe Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!

Brian Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine

Justin Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons

William S. Lind
Saudi Spillover

Linda S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"

Greg Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down

Ron Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"

Toni Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There

Dan Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?

Stew Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection

Dave Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando

Patrick W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball

Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911

Poets' Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies

Website of the Day
Global Peace Solution

 

July 2, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party

Douglas Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism

Gary Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities

Lee Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights

Robert Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly

CounterPunch Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right

Saul Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela

 


July 1, 2004

Katherine van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method

Joe Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?

William James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment

Robert Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq

Alan Maass
Green Party in Reverse

Website of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?

 

 

June 30, 2004

Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush

Tariq Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq

Jennifer Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees

Douglas Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American

David Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass

Roger Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq

Stan Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art

Henry David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming

Ben Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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July 31, 2004

Politics of Pot

A World of Pain

By FRED GARDNER

On that great day when all the single-issue groups assemble to pursue their mutual interests, cannabis users will find they have a lot in common with their fellow citizens who use synthetic opioids to cope with chronic pain. Patients in both groups have had to rely on a handful of doctors willing to approve their drug use without regard to bureaucratic constraints. Because opioids can be fatal, the pain specialists are taking an even greater risk, vis-à-vis law enforcement, than their cannabis-consultant colleagues. So struggle against self-pity, comrades, rise up out of the single-issue trap, and meet some prospective allies.

Joe Talley is an upstanding 67-year old North Carolina country doctor--tall, folksy, garrulous, a Navy vet, a skilled toy maker, a reptile collector--who expects to be indicted by the federal government on multiple murder charges before the end of the year.

Talley put out a shingle as a general practitioner in Grover, N.C. in 1969. Except for a brief stint teaching medicine, he practiced in Grover until April 2002, when the state medical board -acting at the behest of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration- revoked his license.

Talley had become known, over the years, as a doctor willing to prescribe opioids to patients who claimed to be in severe pain. "Word of mouth seems to travel faster in the pool hall than in church," he observes. He is being charged federally in the deaths of people who allegedly overdosed on opioids he prescribed and people who overdosed after buying opioids from his patients. While preparing his defense, Talley, who has not lost his sense of humor or perspective, has written up a number of "situations for which doctors aren't trained." Here are two of them:

* A 27-year-old North Carolina farmer, a good ole' boy I shall call Billy Bob, showed up at my office with a big lump on his shin. It turned out to be Ewing's sarcoma (yes, at age 27!), and unfortunately there were already snowballs on the lung films. Johns Hopkins had one of their send-me-your-poor-downtrodden-weird-cancers programs going, but when Billy went up there, they had little of promise to offer him, so he returned home to die. To their credit, Hopkins sent along a generous supply of Dilaudid.

I had no hesitation in continuing the Dilaudid, and his rapid escalation to a fairly prodigious dose gave me no pause. I wasn't going to let the guy die in pain, and if he was getting any highs on the side, hell, he deserved a break! Billy was a remarkably strong man, and he was able to remain on his feet and ambulate to the office until just days before the inevitable cascade of systems failures and eroding metastases brought the story to a rather quick and merciful close. The family expressed their profound gratitude for my keeping him comfortable until the end.

About a week later one of the most strikingly beautiful patients in my practice presented with tremors and shakes, in obvious withdrawal. Debbie could have been a model anywhere had her heroin addiction not destroyed he life (and incidentally got her kicked out of my office for selling my Xana to buy the stuff.)

Debbie: "Please, doctor, I've just got to have something for this headache!"

Talley: "Come on, Deb, we know each other. You know I can't do that. Go see your supplier if that's what you've got to have."

Debbie: "I CAN'T! HE DIED!"

Billy had the sarcoma all right, but it was one of those few cancers tha kills a guy without inflicting all that much pain. So he had pills he didn't need. He couldn't have gotten within 50 miles of Debbie, until he was furnished with the perfect gift certificate. I thought of writing tha one up in a journal: "New Palliative Treatment for Terminal Cancer: All th sex you ever dreamed of but couldn't get until you secured the proper mediu of Exchange."

* This story involves a transient patient I'll call Sam. He was a sligh little man, around 65, silver-haired and of dusky complexion, obviousl emphysemic. He told us he was from St. Louis, had come to North Carolin for the funeral of his uncle, then had been screwed over by USAir (entirely believable!) over a K fare, and was stranded for the next 5 days. But he had cancer, and he described how the surgery and/or the post-op radiation had damaged the nerves, making him hurt terribly all the time.

He said his doctor in St. Louis had been giving him Dilaudid, which was making his life bearable, but which was running out today. (Yeah, right!)
But when we asked him where his cancer was, he removed his coat with the high furry collar to reveal half his neck missing! He had indeed had a radical neck dissection. Then he produced a well-worn professional card, giving the name and address of his physician, a Dr. Fitzgerald in St. Louis. And so, of course, we called him.

Receptionist: "Dr. Fitzgerald's office. This is Michelle."

Talley: "Yes Ma'm, we got your patient, Sam What's-his-name, out here in Grover, North Carolina, and-"

Receptionist: "SAM? My goodness, what's he doing way out in North Carolina? Oh Yes, now I remember, he said he had a real sick uncle out there! Isn't he a dear, doctor?"

Talley: "Yes'm, he is. Uh, could I talk to Dr. Fitzgerald about him?"

Receptionist: "Well, Dr. Fitzgerald is at lunch. But could I help you in any way with him?"

I asked her to pull the record and confirm his story. After an appropriate pause... Receptionist: "Ye-ess, that's right. Today is the 21st, isn't it? Yes, doctor, his prescription for Dilaudid should be running out today. Could you help him out for a few days until he can get back? You know, we can't call in a Skedule II."

That was enough for me. But my paranoid partner wanted to call the doctor's office back, using directory assistance instead of the number on the card. (Dick saw an addict under every rug, and a wire under every lapel!) To humor him, I did so. Indeed there was a Dr. James Fitzgerald, General Surgery, with an identical address, although a different phone number, for some reason. The call went like this:

Receptionist: "Dr. Fitzgerald's office, Michelle speaking (but with a different voice). What? You called 10 minutes ago? Doctor, I've been at this desk the whole lunch break, and nobody's called in the past hour! I don't know who you called, but- No, wait! Don't tell me, let me guess! YOU GOT OLD SAM OUT THERE, HAVEN'T YOU?"!!!

Sam had an HEENT cancer, all right, but surgery apparently cured it. Now, at 63, with bad emphysema, who was going to hire him? So he stashed his girl friend in a Ramada Inn in St. Louis, ran a private phone line in, printed up some professional cards, and his itinerary was describing an ever-increasing spiral around the country.

We had long since learned that the local KGB had no interest in such as Sam unless we had actually bitten for the scam, and then they would only want him as a witness, so we didn't even bother to call. (We did call a couple of nearby doctors in the area to give them a heads up, but Sam probably knew not to go to the well in the same area repeatedly.)

I asked him how often he successfully pulled off this scam, and he said about a third of the time. But 20 Dilaudid tablets, bringing $60 apiece on the street? It was a living!

So much for the expensive workups to determine if a patient has "generators" for his pain, also the bye that cancer patients get but others don't get.

PS: Before somebody starts up about about my cavalier attitude about diversion leading to some nice kid in St. Louis going to a party, shooting up some of the Dilaudid Sam had passed along to his retailers, and coming to a tragic end, I would say, "Who thinks that kid wouldn't have found something else to indulge his passion for incredibly dangerous behavior with, would have stayed home and done his homework that night, if only suckers like me didn't keep getting had by the Sams of the world?" And before the feminists whom I know lurk amongst us start weighing in on my chauvinistic and sexist portrayal of a poor woman who was forced to sell her body to meet the demands of her disease, I would save them the trouble and say, "OINK."

Since his practice was closed down, Talley has been helping former patients arrange to see other doctors. He says he's been struck by how many have volunteered the information that "they can make do with half the opiates if they have a joint." This jibes exactly with what researchers in Sandra Welch's lab at Virginia Commonwealth University have learned from animal studies: cannabis use can reduce the need for opiates by about 50 percent.

Magic Numbers

Martin Klos is an Oregon MD who has been disciplined by the state board for "overprescribing" opioids. His punishment includes monitoring by another pain specialist. "During our last visit," Klos reported to a colleague, "he was very specific about working with me to find dosages for my patients that would treat their pain, but at the same time would be 'below the horizon' of the regulators' radar to keep me out of trouble with the board, the insurance companies (which have been the source of the majority of complaints against my prescribing) and other doctors. These are the dosages of pain medication that he felt to be acceptable by Oregon regulators.

"Duragesic 150 mg [patch] wearing at a time
"Oxycodone 240 mg per day (3 Oxycontin 80's per day)
"Morphine 300 mg per day and
"Methadone 100 mg per day.

"No pretense was even made as to therapeutic equivalents, or functional evaluation of the patient. These are the doses that 'should keep me out of trouble.' When I discuss this with patients, they universally have decided to try to lower their doses to meet these expectations, knowing these are artificially set by the threat of a regulatory system.

"I have been upfront with the patients, and have discussed this with them at length with each visit, so I do not feel this is unethical. They also have the ability to change doctors to a more technologically capable physician (I cannot have hospital privileges so long as my license is on probation with the medical board) for injections or medication management.

"Regulators have strongly affected medical practice in Oregon, and all the doctors and the medical school seem to agree with the medical board that this is a perfectly legitimate way to practice pain management in our state."

Fred Gardner can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com


Weekend Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004

Kathleen Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel

Janine Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War

Sherry Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader

Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of

Michael Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004

Stanton / Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?

Richard Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology

Gila Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall

Kurt Nimmo
Clinton's Life

Toni Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means

Ron Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest

Camelo Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize

Omar Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance

Poets' Basement
Curtis and Albert

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