Saturday, May 17, 2008

Competitive Enterprise Institute Launches "Politics of Pain" campaign

One of the great under-reported ongoing health care stories is the Drug Enforcement Agency's ongoing harassment of doctors who prescribe certain painkillers. While stopping the abuse of certain addictive painkillers may be an admirable goal, the methods often used in stopping such abuse have left doctors and their patients who are in need of pain medications without them -- or worse, in jail.

That is why I was encouraged to see the announcement on Friday by the respected Competitive Enterprise Institute that it is launching a new campaign called "politics of pain" to fight for patients' rights to access these important drugs.

In addition to CEI's work on the issue, the Cato institute has also done some excellent work on the government's ongoing "war" against these doctors and their patients.