Finally, the truth comes out that state medical boards are not independent entities for the protection of the public and guardians of good medicine, but an arm of the government’s Department of Justice. As reported in the media:

“In a rare public rebuke of one of their own boards, New Jersey’s attorney general and the director of the Division of Consumer Affairs…” 

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal complained that the board did not do what his office requested by suspending the license of Bruce Coplin, MD, a 62 y/o PM & R and pain management specialist in Toms River, NJ. But all in all, they still gain from the media coverage, since they equate the fake “opioid crisis” with doctors prescribing pain medicines.

Coplin’s attorney, John Hanamirian, said his client was an upstanding, “old school” doctor swept up in an aggressive crackdown on prescribing practices that brought him under a cloud of suspicion.

“This guy is a very trusting, caring person,” Hanamirian said. “He’s been in practice for 35 years. He’s never even been sued.”

Coplin was disciplined by the board as a result of a joint investigation by state authorities and the DEA that sent two undercover agents to his office seeking treatment for pain. In both cases, authorities said Coplin ignored “red flags” that the supposed patients were abusing or selling painkillers. But doctors aren’t policemen, and my guess is that the agents did complain of pain worthy of treatment.

The State Board of Medical Examiners, an oversight panel consisting of doctors and other health professionals appointed by the governor, and which is supposed to be an independent body of peers, did issue a temporary order barring Coplin from prescribing controlled substances. But they rejected the government recommendation that the board issue an emergency suspension of Coplin’s license until further review.

“The concerns we have identified all are connected to Dr. Coplin’s poor judgment in treating pain management patients and writing prescriptions,” the board wrote in its decision. “Stripped of the authority to write those prescriptions, the public interest can be adequately safeguarded.”

Even though the board’s decision allows Coplin to continue to see patients until an administrative judge can hear arguments in his case, by limiting his ability to prescribe painkillers, his practice of pain management is closed.

State authorities accused Coplin of “put the public’s safety at risk” by not adequately vetting patients and endangering eight patients with negligence by prescribing pain medicines without conducting exams. Since pain is a subjective condition, it doesn’t surprise me that an older doctor would diagnose and treat just based on history. I’ve known many doctors who did that and didn’t get attacked.

The doctor replied to the accusations through his lawyer, John Hanamirian. In papers filed with the board, the doctor said he was dealing with a flood of new patients from other doctors who had been criminally implicated or disciplined for overprescribing. The state’s crackdown on doctors who handle pain management had left many patients with nowhere else to go. 

“Everybody’s so afraid to prescribe that he got inundated with patients,” Hanamirian said. “He was trying to triage the situation.”

So it is obvious that Dr. Coplin is like most doctors in the country, believing that doctors who get attacked must have been doing something wrong, but that since he treated appropriately, he was safe—until it happened to him.

Addendum:

To end these attacks, restore pain management, and provide compensation to all the families that have been destroyed by government overreach, we must get the Controlled Substance Act repealed.  Join Doctorsofcourage to get that done. Learn what we teach and spread the word.  NO DRUG CAUSES ADDICTION!! Let’s end the War on Drugs, Doctors and Pain Patients, end the black market, solve the southern border crisis, and restore proper pain management.  It CAN be done! 

Addendum from the author:

I have failed in my mission to end these attacks on doctors and pain patients. Through John Bevere’s book The Bait of Satan, I have figured out why—my lack of forgiveness to those who attacked me. As in Mark 11: 24-26:

“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

And when you do not do the will of the Father, you are estranged from him and he will ignore you.  So we all must forgive the agents who attacked us in order for things to be made right through any of our works.

Jesus said

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

But we cannot lay down our lives for God unless we know Him well enough to trust Him. We must have the assurance that He would never do anything to harm us. He always looks out for what He knows is in our best interest. As a nation, those of us suffering from these attacks must understand that we are serving as God’s messengers of love.  We must forgive those who persecute us and love them instead, following God’s will for us. Then and only then will we see fruits from our labor.

So I hope that everyone who has suffered from what happened to the doctor can trust the Lord, forgive those who have hurt you, and help bring this country back to the God-fearing country that our forefathers founded. Then, and only then, can you be a part of the effort to stop these attacks. I look forward to that day.