The vindictive grand jury investigation of pain-relief advocate Siobhan Reynolds.

[The Straight Story]

The vindictive grand jury investigation of pain-relief advocate Siobhan Reynolds.

Grand juries are supposed to act as a buffer between prosecutors and those they accuse of committing a crime. They're intended to protect us from having our reputations ruined by reckless and meritless allegations. In reality, grand juries have been captured by prosecutors. The American Bar Association notes that, particularly at the federal level, grand juries have come to possess "wide, sweeping, almost unrestricted power," which is "virtually in complete control of the prosecutor." In the wrong hands, grand juries can even become a tool for harassing a prosecutor's political enemies. The feud between Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway and pain patient advocate Siobhan Reynolds is a good example.

Over the last decade, the federal government has been targeting doctors who treat pain patients with prescription drugs like Percocet and Oxycontin. Advocates like Reynolds argue that doctors who overprescribe painkillers should be disciplined by medical boards if they are sloppy or unscrupulous, not judges and prosecutors. Dumping them into the criminal justice system puts drug cops in the position of determining what is and isn't acceptable medical treatment. One promising treatment of chronic pain known as high-dose opiate therapy, for example has all but disappeared because doctors are too terrified of running afoul of the law to try it.

Siobhan Reynolds entered this fray when her late ex-husband, Sean, began suffering the symptoms of a congenital connective tissue disorder that left him with debilitating pain in his joints. After trying a variety of treatments, he found relief in a high-dose drug therapy administered by Virginia pain specialist William Hurwitz. But Hurwitz was later charged and convicted on 16 counts of drug trafficking. The judge acknowledged that Hurwitz ran a legitimate practice and had likely saved and improved the lives of countless people. His crime was not recognizing that some of his patients were addicts and dealers. Meanwhile, Reynolds' husband died in 2006 of a cerebral brain hemorrhage, which she believes was the result of years of abnormally high blood pressure brought on by his pain.

All of this moved Reynolds to start the Pain Relief Network, a shoestring nonprofit that advocates on behalf of pain patients and physicians. Reynolds quickly learned how to convey the frustration of pain patients and their families. I first met her at a 2005 Capitol Hill forum. She had the entire room in tears. I later commissioned and edited a paper for the Cato Institute about painkiller prosecutions.

http://www.slate.com/id/2278244/pagenum/all/

[SheilaT]

1. It enrages me that people are left to suffer

because a relatively small handful abuse pain-medication. No one who has not suffered from chronic, debilitating pain has any clue what it's really like. Reynolds is absolutely correct that it shouldn't be up to judges and law officers to decide what's appropriate to prescribe. Perhaps more needs to be done to train doctors to recognize which patients are addicts who don't really need all the prescriptions, but meanwhile those with legitimate pain relief needs should not be forced to suffer.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Ultimately, this is an argument for legalization.

Less harm is done to society directly by opiate (and other drug) addiction than occurs as a result of enforcing laws against it. A whole raft of secondary crimes, done to get the drug or to protect dealer turf and the like, would disappear if the drugs were legalized.

[DirkGently]

3. We worry far more about people using drugs they "aren't supposed to" than about people in pain.