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30 Years For Online Pharmacy Spammer

Posted by kdawson on Thu Aug 02, 2007 08:33 AM
from the drug-kingpin-goes-down dept.
Government The Courts Spam News
jotter507 writes "So, you get arrested for running an illegal online pharmacy and the judge orders you to stop selling medication over the Internet. Don't sit around and do nothing before the trial! Run off to the Dominican Republic on a false passport, withdraw money from an account ordered frozen, and start up another online 'pharmacy.' It didn't end well for 27-year old Christopher William Smith, also known as 'Rizler.' The world-reviled spammer and Internet drug dispenser received a 30-year sentence from a federal judge on Wednesday."
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  • Before anyone calls this sentence excessive (Score:5, Informative)

    by elrous0 (869638) * on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:35AM (#20084985)
    Keep in mind that this guy did a LOT more than just spamming or even selling drugs. He fled the country, was laundering money, and (most egregiously) was trying to hire a hitman to kill one of the children of a witness against him.

    In other words...good riddance scumbag.

    • Re:Before anyone calls this sentence excessive (Score:5, Funny)

      by Soko (17987) on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:43AM (#20085133) Homepage
      Excessive? EXCESSIVE? No way dude. This guy got it right:

      "Hi, we're a group of ominous looking people who happen to deal with way too much spam. We'd like to wander aimlessly around your house discussing vivid images of what should be done to spammers, their families and casual acquaintences, and make veiled threats as to the future of your limbs (attached or not), animals and the insertion of farming implements into your orifices".

      Chris "Saundo" Saunderson
      He should be grateful most sysadmins are too cynical, moral, smart and busy to go to Law School and become judges. I would imagine "All rise for presiding Judge Simon Travaglia [wikipedia.org] would strike abject terror into the heart of any spammer.

      That would be cool.

      Soko

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by garcia (6573)
      He fled the country, was laundering money, and (most egregiously) was trying to hire a hitman to kill one of the children of a witness against him.

      Not only did he flee the country, but he fled the country to setup shop outside of US jurisdiction to have the money keep rolling in. Why he ever came back at that point I'll never know. I guess the lure of his $1.5 million home and numerous fancy cars in Prior Lake, MN was too much for him.

      I don't think his sentence was excessive in the least. What I do think

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by garcia (6573)
          If it helps, keep in mind that their conviction of these crimes will follow them around pretty much for the rest of their lives. Most employment applications require the applicant to be forthcoming on felony convictions. For good jobs, many applications indicating a felony conviction find their way very quickly to the circular file. Life will be very hard for them. Maybe better than prison, but still very hard.

          Perhaps you didn't read what I had to say. The judge presiding in the case offered to write a let

    • It is an excessive sentence (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mi (197448) <mi+slashdot@aldan.algebra.com> on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:59AM (#20085351) Homepage

      He fled the country, was laundering money, and (most egregiously) was trying to hire a hitman to kill one of the children of a witness against him.

      Still excessive in my opinion. American sentences boggle one's mind... After Stalin's death the maximum sentence in USSR was reduced from 25 years to 15 — although many crimes were still punishable by death (as they are here) and one also got to spend their days in much harsher conditions than in the US.

      The main difference here is that in the US sentences are added up upon one another, whereas in most of the rest of the world they run concurrently. It could be argued, that American system continues to deter criminals after their first crime, while the other system makes the subsequent crimes "free". On the other hand, once a crook has accumulated enough years in US, their subsequent crimes are also free, because any sentence will be, in effect, a life one. With a considerable sentencing leeway given to judges, in neither system do the subsequent crimes need to be "free".

      Increasing the harshness of the punishment hardens the criminals and makes them more likely to escalate violence. There is a well known historical precedent from medieval Europe, where a local baron instituted death penalty for highway robbers. Having nothing more to risk, the robbers started killing their victims instead of simply robbing them...

      What works best is the inevitability of punishment, rather then the harshness of it. 25% of the spammers receiving a 1 year sentence would deter more scumbags, than 2 of them (a fraction of a percent) getting publicly chopped up on a wheel.

      • Re:It is an excessive sentence (Score:4, Informative)

        by YrWrstNtmr (564987) on Thursday August 02 2007, @09:20AM (#20085637)
        The main difference here is that in the US sentences are added up upon one another, whereas in most of the rest of the world they run concurrently.

        No, that is by no means a hard and fast rule [law.com].

      • Re:It is an excessive sentence (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Branc0 (580914) on Thursday August 02 2007, @09:22AM (#20085689) Homepage Journal

        It is interesting what you say but I have to give you the other end of spectrum. I live in a country where the maximum penalty is 25 years. It really does not matter if you kill one person or 4 you will get at most 25 years.

        Recently we had a case in the news where one guy killed 3 little girls, hid the evidence, tried to blame it on another guy and commited two or three more crimes, he got nailed with 25 years and the defence is appealing to try to reduce the time (unlikely, since the total time was around 60 years, even if they reduce somewhat it will still be over 25).

        Now I believe, 25 years in jail is a long time. When you get out of there you sure did have some time to think about the things you've done and how to straighten up (of course, some never do). The real problem here is paroles, saw it on the news that although he got 25 years sentence, in some cases they get out on parole after 6 years, and hardly anyone gets more than 16 years or real jail time.

        Now this starts to look short. So we either need to review the parole system or we need to start comulating penalties like in the US so that criminals do pay their time in jail. If one of the girls he killed was my daughter and he got out of jail in 6 years... oh boy, don't even want to imagine how I would feel and just how much I would be willing to do.

        • The real problem here is paroles, saw it on the news that although he got 25 years sentence, in some cases they get out on parole after 6 years, and hardly anyone gets more than 16 years or real jail time.

          16 is still very long. It is one year longer, than the longest sentence in USSR. 6 may be short, but it is, probably, in cases, the man is judged to have completely reformed...

          The purpose of punishment is not to exact vengeance — it is to deter crimes and to comfort the victims.

          If anything coul

          • Re:It is an excessive sentence (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Oligonicella (659917) on Thursday August 02 2007, @10:36AM (#20086829)
            "The purpose of punishment is not to exact vengeance -- it is to deter crimes and to comfort the victims."

            Baloney. The purpose of punishment is punishment. Nothing, not a damn thing, deters crime.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by elrous0 (869638) *
              Exactly. It's not like most criminals are intelligent and rational people who sit down and weigh the pros and cons of what they're doing beforehand. Some methed-up piece of trailer trash who kills someone in a liqour store robbery is probably not going to carefully consider the repercussions before he commits his crime.

              As for the "maximum of 25 years" thing, this may be financially beneficial to the state--but I fail to see how it benefits the society (especially in extreme cases such as established seria

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by ultranova (717540)

            The purpose of punishment is not to exact vengeance -- it is to deter crimes and to comfort the victims.

            If someone kills my children and the legal system fails to get vengeance, I will simply get it myself. That is another aspect to consider. Too weak punishments mean that people won't bother with the courts at all.

            If anything could be done to the man to bring his victims back to life, it should be done. But there is nothing we can do...

            We can, however, make sure that he never kills anyone ever aga

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by mdielmann (514750)
            Actually, from what I've heard, reduced sentences usually mean you didn't do anything too horrible while in jail, and not much else. Given the nature of the spammer's crimes, he'll probably be out in 10. And despite the horrific nature of the child murderer's crimes, the fact that he's already killed that many kids, and is probably incorrigible, he'll probably be out in 10 years of less, too. So it won't do enough for public safety, and it certainly won't deter those who would go around harming total inn

        • Re:It is an excessive sentence (Score:5, Interesting)

          by smellsofbikes (890263) on Thursday August 02 2007, @11:49AM (#20088169) Journal
          Basically what we're talking about here is a type of compression algorithm. A person lives an average of 75 years, and for purposes of this discussion, let's assume the person is youngish, since they're more likely to commit crimes. Say 25 years. That means that a 50 year sentence is essentially the maximum useful sentence -- it is equivalent to life in prison. So the *worst* crime imaginable would map to this -- the one where you kill everyone in the world by sexually assaulting them with kittens and then peeing on their dead bodies while singing heavy metal ballads.
          A proportional justice system means that anything less than this ultimate crime, should have a lesser sentence.
          From there, it's just a question of how you map things -- is it linear or logarithmic with the severity of the crime (since causing a crash that injures two people is only 1/100000000 as bad as killing everyone in the world with kittens, should your sentence for doing this be only 1/100000000 as long as a life sentence, or only 1/1000?) What level of crime is sufficient that anything above it maps to life in prison? How much will that cost?

          To the victim, any sentence probably seems too lenient, because the victim has been personally affected. The questions are: what is best for society as a whole, and what are we actually trying to do with imprisonment?

          Fundamentalists (which I use in its original meaning) and many conservatives feel that criminality is permanent, and as such, prisons are primarily punishment, retribution, or a way of getting rid of criminals if we can't outright kill them. As a result, they tend to want very long prison sentences or the death penalty.
          Progressives, and most liberals, feel that criminality is situational, and as such, prisons can be used for rehabilitation, so that once the sentence is served, with appropriate help and training, the person coming out is possibly no longer a criminal and can live a useful, productive, non-criminal life.

          Basically, you have to ask yourself what you think prison is for. If it's for making people suffer for having done bad things, you're probably going to want long sentences and capital punishment. If it's for fixing broken people, you're probably going to favor shorter sentences and definitely going to favor education, job training, and self-advancement opportunities being offered in prisons. Victims of crime are naturally going to feel retributive towards the criminals who caused them suffering, and probably towards criminals in general. I personally think that one of the responsibilities of society at large is to approach crime with a neutral point of view, and make sentencing depend on what's best for society as a whole, rather than just to appease the feelings of the victim.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Creepy (93888)
      Just to clarify, the money wasn't laundered, more concealed - he hid a lot of it in cereal boxes (1.1 million). Laundering is sending it through accounts and/or businesses to conceal its origins and make it clean money in the account. I've never read that he did that.

      He also didn't really "flee" the country - as I understand it, he used a fake passport to go to the Dominican Republic to set up his pharmacy there after it was shut down in 2005, then _returned_ to Minnesota and continued spamming and sellin
  • Sounds like a perfectly good buisness model to me! Wonder what could go wrong...

  • Enlarge Your S-E-N-T-E-N-C-E with MegaDOJ (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShaunC (203807) * on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:35AM (#20085005) Homepage
    If this guy's getting 30 years, then whoever's behind the "United States National Medical Association" deserves the death penalty. I've never seen so much spam for one target site as I have for US-NMA, and what puzzles me is that the spam continues even though the domain has been parked at an error page for at least a week now. It's almost as if they no longer care about selling fake pills, they just want to annoy the hell out of everyone...

    Oh well, kudos to those involved for putting another spammer away. Keep up the good work.

  • It couldn't happen to a better guy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by paladinwannabe2 (889776) on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:43AM (#20085129)
    It seems the spammer did everything in his power to maximize his jail sentence. Not only did he defy the judge at every opportunity, but he also threatened to kill a witness's children if she testified. He probably could have gotten away with serious fines if he had only cooperated, but instead he's probably going to lose not just his 10+ Automobiles, but also as many of his millions of dollars as the government can find.

  • Ouch. (Score:5, Funny)

    by spocksbrain (1097145) on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:44AM (#20085147)
    30 years is tough. He is probably really anxious and stressed, I suggest he take some x.a@x!

    • Re:Ouch. (Score:5, Funny)

      by jollyreaper (513215) on Thursday August 02 2007, @09:05AM (#20085445)

      30 years is tough. He is probably really anxious and stressed, I suggest he take some x.a@x!
      Naw, I'm just going to spam his cellmates with free v!aGrA. The conclusion of this joke is left as an exercise for the reader.

  • Federal Time is good! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by erroneus (253617) on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:48AM (#20085201) Homepage
    As I understand it, there is no parole and time off for good behavior. This is good... very good.

    Still... I wake up almost every morning hoping to see a headline about "spammer brutally murdered in his mansion." Yes, I'm sure I'm not the only one who hopes for such headlines, but my imagination goes further... I want to see something in the story stating that the cause of death was from being buried under the weight of several thousand cans of canned-meat [by-]products.

    I'm sure there are more creative ideas than this, but I think the world would generally approve of this means of waste disposal.

  • Pardon me /.ers but Reagan instituted mandatory (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grolaw (670747) on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:58AM (#20085331) Journal
    Sentencing guidelines. The PROSECUTOR not the JUDGE makes the ultimate decision of what charges to bring and the Judge has to apply the guidelines and explain if the Judge deviates from the guidelines (upward or downward).

    FWIW, this guy is much more than a spammer and 30 years is far from a reasonable sentence. 300 years for conspiracy to murder the child of an adverse witness is a fair term FOR THAT ONE CRIME.

    A Cage is where we put people too dangerous to be a part of society. (IMHO, that includes you loonies who think business and people should have unfettered power - s**t what happens when your "unfettered" business starts feeding us CO-treated bad meat or your drunken neighbor decides to fire his .50 sniper rifle from his living room - just to see how far the bullet goes? GUESS WHAT - we have to have laws!).

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MBGMorden (803437)

      .50 sniper rifle

      Very few (if any) .50's are used for sniping. The standard rifle used by US Army snipers is a Remington 700 in 7.62 NATO (.308" caliber); the DC snipers used a Bushmaster chambered in 5.56 NATO (.223" caliber). Almost all rifle bullets used for sniping are 8mm (.315") or smaller in diameter. I'm assuming by .50 you mean .50 BMG, and in the civilian sector it is used almost exclusively for very long range TARGET shooting. A few people use it to hunt large animals (such as African safari hunts) but even

    • You are suggesting a 300 year sentence? wow, how long do people live in your place?

      My understanding is that in the USA, sentences can be put back to back, is that true? so if you did ten things that were worth a ten year sentence you'd get a hundred years?

      If so, what's the point of issuing sentences over 75 years or so? why not just say "until you're dead, no remission"? Genuine question rather than flamebait, can anybody enlighten me to the legal thought behind what seems a bit silly on the surface. As som

  • Excuse me? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jcr (53032) <jcr@@@mac...com> on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:58AM (#20085347) Journal
    How was the perp able to withdraw money from a frozen account?

    -jcr

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Unfreezing an account is actually pretty easy depending on the bank. I once had an account frozen on me because of a bankruptcy declaration (no, they aren't _supposed_ to do that, but this bank usually does anyways) - I had warning the day before, and went to the bank, left my card in the machine, and went home - I then reported the card missing, got a replacement, and when they disabled that card for the "account freeze", I went into the bank I got the replacement from, and complained that my replacement
        • The "paperwork" would have consisted of a letter from your bankruptcy attorney to the bank giving your bankruptcy case number (I usually include a courtesy copy of the first page of the filed petition) and citing 11 U.S.C. 362. Faxing the letter usually results in the account being released within an hour or two, at least in my experience and IAAL. I don't even charge extra for this but YMMV.
  • ...he'll end up in prison with men who've enlarged their dicks with v1agra and are looking for HOT SEX NOW

    • Re:If there is any justice in this world... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rangek (16645) on Thursday August 02 2007, @10:09AM (#20086361)
      What the hell is up with rape being considered part and parcel of a just prison sentence? It is just sickening that a large segment of our population does not seem to have a problem with people being raped, assaulted, or otherwise abused while in prison. Imprisonment is supposed to be the punishment for serious crimes, not imprisonment, rape, etc.

        • Re:If there is any justice in this world... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rangek (16645) on Thursday August 02 2007, @11:01AM (#20087215)

          You're right. We should get rid of the rape aspect of prison and just leave the wholesome race wars.

          No, that's not right either. Crimes committed in prison should not be given a free pass by society, whether rape, assault, or whatever.

          Prison sucks. It sucks for the people who go there, it sucks for the people who work there, and it sucks for the society that has to pay for it.

          I agree. But that is no reason for some people to condone criminal behavior in prisons.

          BTW, I love how I got modded "Flamebait" for speaking out against rape. Nice...

          • Modding... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by msimm (580077) on Thursday August 02 2007, @12:27PM (#20088993) Homepage
            Fuck them. Good for you for speaking your mind. People seem to have forgot the whole reform idea. If you put someone into a place where the only protection they have is packs and violence then what will you get when they come out? And what about the people in prison for crimes they didn't commit? We all know it happens. Or for things like the drug laws where local and federal laws are misaligned?

            There are some crimes I don't condone and people I personally wouldn't like to see re-integrated back into society (rapists, sociopaths who murder). But there are a lot of people who make mistakes and should be allowed to return to society after serving their time.

  • From my spam today: (Score:4, Funny)

    by u-bend (1095729) on Thursday August 02 2007, @09:19AM (#20085633) Homepage Journal

    Find out the sex craving all guys have
    I guess in prison, he really will.

  • Obligatory quote... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Vexler (127353) on Thursday August 02 2007, @09:32AM (#20085797) Journal
    Michael Bolton: We get caught laundering money, we're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no. We're going to federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Zelos (1050172)
      I would guess that a large part of that 30 years is due to his behaviour after being charged, breaking court orders often carries a greater sentence than the original crime IIRC.

    • Re:Hah! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Just Some Guy (3352) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Thursday August 02 2007, @09:36AM (#20085853) Homepage Journal

      In America they teach you to pursue the "American Dream." This guy does he gets 30 years, meanwhile the guy who rapes your preteen daughter gets 3-5.

      The guy wasn't "just" a spammer. He ran an online pharmacy, and his assistant (whose children he tried to have killed) was responsible for procuring Vicodin for him to sell.

      He was a fraud, a fugitive, and a would-be killer. He was also apparently willing to sell your teenage daughter real narcotics, and did so often enough that the gov't sold 1.6 million dollars worth of his cars at auction. Sorry, I can't drum up a lot of sympathy for him.

        • Re:Hah! (Score:5, Informative)

          by king-manic (409855) on Thursday August 02 2007, @09:30AM (#20085773)
          now I am going to be stuck footing the bill for 30 years of keeping this worthless piece of crap alive in a prison where bleeding heart pansies have demanded that criminals be treated better than the average citizen. So he will have cable, a gym, free food, a place to sleep, etc...I'm sure plenty of homeless would kill for that (and probably have because we have set up such a sweet deal for them). For all your "prison is a rough place" people...I imagine living on the street, not eating, and frequently being beaten or killed by moron teens for sport, or maybe mauled for insurance fraud reasons, is probably a bit worse.

          Prison isn't fun. A friend of mine spend 2 in a Canadian prison for sellign pot and turned his life around because he never wants to go back. This is a massively built black guy who would never have to worry about beingont he receiving end of prison rape.

          The whole "but homeless people would kill to be there" is a fallacy too. Life on the streets is rough but you still have some freedoms to massage your vices or turn it around. In America/Canada you still can eat regularly as well and you pan handle enough to get some booze or food fairly easily. How often do you hear in hedlines that a homeless person comitted a crime to go to prison. I have never heard of this. I live in one of the coldest cities in NA. I'm sure it happens in some places but the arguementis a fallacy because our prisons here and there aren't filled with homeless. Their filled with drug dealers. Check the stats.
      • The "interstate commerce" clause applies, to wit: stopping fraud across state lines, perpetrated in the guise of business.

        Was this guy ACTUALLY selling medicine, and that in good faith? or was he running a scam?

        • He sold many things of different legality (Score:5, Informative)

          by billstewart (78916) on Thursday August 02 2007, @02:57PM (#20091777) Journal
          According to Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] and this article, Smith sold a lot of different things over the years. Some of them allegedly included
          • Genuine pharmaceuticals, with high prices and potentially-dodgy prescriptions (e.g. his pet doctor would prescribe you hydrocodone).
          • Penis pills, including genuine Viagra and also dubious enhancement products.
          • Cable TV descramblers of dubious legality
          • Fake college degrees (or real degrees from non-accredited colleges, or something like that.)
          • He also violated anti-spam laws, and was ordered to pay AOL a lot of money for spamming their customers, and has been accused of using a variety of less-legitimate methods to get his spam delivered.

            Also, of course, after being convicted but before being sentenced, he tried to stash some of money where the Feds couldn't get it, which is not the brightest way to get the judge to take it easy on you.

      • Damn right, if someone wants to ruin the internet, run drugs and threaten to kill people HOW DARE ANYONE STOP THEM.

        Oh libertarianism... What will you justify next!

        • Anarchism != Libertarianism (Score:5, Informative)

          by dazedNconfuzed (154242) on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:57AM (#20085321)
          Get your "ism"s straight.

          Libertarianism would certainly not tolerate this guy, as he was running a scam, committed what any sane person would consider real crimes, and solicited murder - exactly the kind of thing Libertarians DO want a government around to deal with, and deal with harshly & efficiently.

          The word you're looking for is Anarchism - where everything he did would be legal precisely because absolutely nothing would be illegal, and that because there would be no government to declare anything illegal.
          • That's not anarchism. You do know that libertarianism is a just a minor sub-branch of individualist anarchism, right? Anarchism means no heirarchy and no initiation of force, not no organization or laws.

              • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                by DeepHurtn! (773713)
                Retaliation can take the form of exclusion as well. Most anarchisms are based upon the idea of free association; people won't want to associate with someone who doesn't play nice, which would likely end up denying the transgressor access to important infrastructure, resources, &c. They'd need to go over to some other syndicate and try their luck again, or try living in isolation without assistance.

                • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by spun (1352)
                  And syndicates should stick together to keep free riders from benefiting from the public good of social responsibility. Make it part of the contract. If you want to join, you have to agree never to do business with anyone who does not contribute to ensuring everyone has the basic necessities of life. That, too me, is the key piece that would let social anarchism compete on a level playing field within an individualist anarchist system.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by alcmaeon (684971)

            The political philosophy of anarchy could be called libertarian socialism as opposed to communism which could be called authoritarian socialism.

            Libertarianism, as extolled by the American Libertarian party, purports to believe in political freedom whilst maintaining private property but with no regulation of any kind on the private property and whilst having no commons.

            Anarchy doesn't mean everything is "legal" and that there are no rules. Anarchy posits a system in which people have political and econ

      • Re:Excellent ! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by smooth wombat (796938) on Thursday August 02 2007, @08:55AM (#20085299) Homepage Journal
        It figures. I ran out of mod points yesterday so instead, I'll respond to the troll.

        It's not about the government telling someone what business they can or cannot run, it's about this person selling pills which are claimed to be the real thing. In other words, he was selling placebos and not telling people these weren't the real thing.

        Further, Congress has delegated authority to regulate medicinces to the FDA since medicines are not state specific. You can find the same bottle of Advil in Georgia as you can in Kansas. The FDA has stated that if it's a medicine, it must undergo rigorous testing to prove its relative safety.

        This guy was claiming he had real drugs which he could deliver on the cheap. Not only was he violating FDA guidelines, he was perpetrating fraud.

        So tell me, what country do you live in that allows someone to perpetrate fraud and not get penalized?
          • I think the inquiring about a hit man and asking someone to take photos of a cooperating witness' children is probably what really did him in. Witness tampering and death threats should mean a long sentence in the big house.

    • It would be nice if people didn't post "print" links to articles. Lots of times this cuts out the advertising that the publisher has on the web page.

      There's a reason people post "print" link to articles instead of to the ad-laden one, and it's the publishers' faults.

      It's because for years now, we the consumers have been so abused with web publishers pushing ads on us that we immediately jump to defend ourselves against them, whether it's justified or not. If Internet publishers had been reasonable all

      • Re:Pain medication (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CopaceticOpus (965603) on Thursday August 02 2007, @11:22AM (#20087607)

        There are two basic problems. The primary one is that doctors are legally restricted about how much medication they can give, and are taking professional risks if they don't seriously restrict the prescriptions they write for these medications. The government is stopping doctors from helping people in the name of the "War on Drugs."

        The second problem is that only the pain sufferer knows what they are going through. I think some doctors do not give the sufferer enough choice about what degree of medication they take. My doctor denied me a hydrocodone (Vicodin) refill, despite these facts: 1. It provided pain relief when over the counter drugs did not. 2. My pain was very bad and was reducing my ability to work, sleep, and generally function. 3. I was only taking 50% of the maximum allowed daily dose. I had not abused the medication in any way, and used it only when most needed. 4. A reasonable dose of hydrocodone is actually safer than many over-the-counter pain drugs.

        The only reason my doctor could give for denying my medication was the risk of developing addiction. But I had showed no signs of addiction, and when I stopped the medication I experienced no withdrawal. I just experienced a lot of pain.

        For more very interesting thoughts see this article, "The DEA's War on Pain Doctors" [villagevoice.com]

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