Murder Charges Brought For Over Prescribing Opiates, MMJ Could Be The Answer?

The Solution Could be the Pain Relief Offered by Cannabis

Opiate Doctor Charged With Murder, Could Cannabis Have Helped? from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

A Southern California general practice physician recently convicted of second-degree murder for prescribing painkillers and other medications that ultimately killed three patients was just sentenced to 30 years to life.

This landmark case marks the first time in United States history that a doctor was convicted of murder for the wonton and irresponsible over-prescribing of addictive, dangerous medications.

Twelve of Dr. Hsiu-Ying "Lisa" Tseng’s patients died, but she was charged with just three murders because other factors were involved and possibly contributed to the other deaths, including drugs prescribed by different doctors and a possible suicide.

The first of her patients to die had received prescriptions from Tseng two days earlier for oxycodone, the muscle-relaxer Soma, and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, prosecutors said.

Obviously, when a doctor ignores patient deaths and continues prescribing huge amounts of dangerous drugs, this is not normal physician behavior and demonstrates an egregious amount of greed and lack of basic human compassion.

But the situation also brings to attention how dangerous and addictive narcotic pain relievers are and how prone to abuse.

BIG PHARMA DRUGS

Opioids - primarily prescription painkillers and heroin – played a part in more than 28,000 deaths across the U.S. in 2014, and overdoses of these drugs have more than quadrupled since 2000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But people do experience pain, sometimes frightfully severe pain, and doctors need to have the tools, including medications, to help their patients get relief from pain.

The management of pain is a difficult and important part of any medical practice.

With most prescribed painkillers being so difficult to monitor and manage, giving doctors the additional tool of Cannabis only makes sense. Sometimes cannabis alone is enough to dull or even eliminate a patient’s pain. Sometimes, it can be prescribed along with other painkillers, relieving more of the individual’s pain, without adding to the addictive potential and side effects of the narcotic already being prescribed.

In the book, Medical Marijuana 101, the author Mickey Martin relates the story of a 28- year-old car accident victim. This young man, Robert, had broken several bones, including his pelvis and every bone below his waist.

After his release from the hospital Robert was prescribed a variety of opiate-based painkillers, includes Oxycontin and Vicodin. The side effects Robert got from these drugs included erectile dysfunction, constipation, stomach ulcers and addiction. The pain, coupled with the drugs, led to depression and anxiety. The medications were destroying his body and his life.

After starting on cannabis, Robert was able to quit four of the prescription medications he had been prescribed (Four medications!! No mention of the total number he had been put on.) The young man explains how marijuana is the only drug that reduces the pain, does not damage his body and actually relieves any anxiety or depression.

At the end of the interview Robert tells the author that if he (Robert) had continued on the medications he had initially been prescribed he would now be a “vegetable”. Instead, with marijuana for the pain, he is motivated to get things done and to live his life.

Doctor Charged With Opiate Murder, Cannabis Could Have Helped

Doctors across the country need to have this drug in their arsenal as they wage war against pain.

Meridith Berk

http://TheEducatedPatientSeries.com