Alexander DeLuca, M.D.
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Portraying Doctors as Drug Dealers
[Trash Journalism and the Case of Dr. Martinez]
 

 
Maia Szalavitz; Standing Together for Adequate Treatment (STAT) blog; 2005-12-08. Posted: 2006-07-02.
[Identifier: http://www.doctordeluca.com/Library/WOD/PortrayingDocsAsDealers05.htm]
[Source: http://standto.blogspot.com/]
 
Related resources:  Drug War Journalism and Advocacy Library 
 
See also:
Physician [Jorge Martinez] Gets Life for Drug Deaths - [Trash Journalism by] Mike Tobin; Cleveland Plain Dealer; 2006-06-10
 
Dr. Frank Fisher Comments on the Martinez Conviction - Frank Fisher, M.D., Pain Relief Network, 2006-01-14

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Is this reporting or propaganda? This story in Cleveland Scene is a classic example of how misunderstanding of the nature of addiction and misreading of the law leads to misleading news stories and the support of misguided criminal prosecutions:

On Pins and Needles - Josh Mound, Cleveland Scene, 2005-12-07

Writer Josh Mound reports that Dr. Jorge Martinez gave pain patients painful "nerve block" injections and then prescribed painkillers. According to Mound, federal prosecutors claim Martinez was a drug dealer who "turned [his patients] into addicts," through this practice. While the reporter acknowledges that "patients should take some responsibility for their own choices," he says that the sheer number of claims that Martinez made people into addicts suggest that there is truth to them.

But this is absurd: addiction is defined as a compulsive use of a substance despite negative consequences by the most widely accepted definition, that of the American Psychiatric Association. No one can "make" someone else do this. One can certainly induce physical dependence on opioids (which means abrupt cessation will produce flu-like withdrawal symptoms), but one cannot compel someone else to compulsively desire and seek out more of a drug, despite negative results from doing so.

That requires repeated personal choices no matter how many people claim otherwise. And, it occurs only in a minority of people exposed to opioids medically - without a prior history of addiction, roughly one percent.

Mound fails to mention, in fact, that some 90 percent of all prescription drug misusers, according to federal statistics, have used cocaine and psychedelics. This means they are not drug-naïve pain patients - they are pre-existing heavy drug users who seek out doctors to get drugs. This is why the manufacturer of OxyContin, Purdue, which has been sued hundreds of times for allegedly addicting people, has never lost a case.

Mound himself opens his story with the case of an addict who heard from other drug users that Martinez was an easy target for scams to get drugs and who then sought him out. This is no innocent victim "turned into an addict" by an evil doctor. But Mound uses the case to portray Martinez as the bad guy.

He notes that a worker in Martinez' office was busted selling faked prescriptions - and while he acknowledges that she may receive a reduced prison term for testifying against the doctor, he uses her story mainly to further demonize the physician. He reports that the doctor continued to prescribe to the man who bought the forged prescriptions.

Mound alleges that this is because Martinez was greedy - but doesn't note that it could also be because he thought that the man was suffering from legitimate pain. Mound doesn't seem to get that being an addict doesn't preclude having legitimate pain and requiring medical care.

Mound repeatedly portrays Martinez as paranoid and money-hungry - and says that the nerve block injections he gave were painful, expensive and unnecessary. But what he misses here is that Martinez is caught between a rock and a hard place. If he simply prescribes opioids based on patients' descriptions of their pain, he is being "loose with his prescription pad," and not trying alternatives before giving potentially addictive drugs, according to the feds. If he gives nerve block injections (which do not involve opioids), he's making legitimate patients endure painful shots so that he can turn them into addicts. How can he win?

Perhaps Martinez gave these injections precisely in order to attempt to ward off addicts, who might not want to endure such treatment if they were simply faking their conditions? This is not an admirable practice - but it certainly reflects the current atmosphere of fear produced by precisely these kinds of prosecutions.

What Mound also doesn't seem to understand is that if Martinez is giving painful and unnecessary treatments, this is considered medical malpractice and not a criminal act. Just because the prosecutors are conflating Martinez' alleged poor medical treatment with his alleged drug dealing, doesn't mean that journalists have to do so as well.

Mound does note that there are "many" patients who have organized to support Martinez and who say he was a good and compassionate doctor. But he gives this group less than 200 words to state their case in a nearly 4,000 word article - and uses one of the five paragraphs he gives them to quote one as calling some of the other patients "pillheads."

While the government didn't pay this paper to print its propaganda as it has been known to do elsewhere these days, with this kind of reporting, it might as well have. Martinez may well be a terrible doctor. He might even be a drug dealer. But this article has convicted him of malpractice and drug dealing without adequately exploring the other side of the story and in a way that confuses criminal and civil law.

[END]