Donald Siao, MD, 58 y/o, an independent, minority family practice physician in San Jose CA and a 1990 graduate of Stanford University Medical School, was charged in 2021 based on the Controlled Substance Act, with being a drug pusher for prescribing opioids to patients. He was then convicted in June, 2023—in spite of the Ruan/Kahn SCOTUS decision in 2022—on 12 counts of distributing oxycodone and hydrocodone outside of his professional practice and without a legitimate purpose. This is actually the phrase in the Controlled Substance Act that was written to protect doctors from prosecution for treating patients. That has gone by the wayside due to the propaganda against opioids created by the government in the early 2000’s. His trial lasted only one week. 

In this case as in all cases, the government depends on their own created propaganda that opioids cause addiction. They used as evidence:

1. Siao wrote 8,201 prescriptions for controlled substances between May 2016 and May 2017, which averaged 22 prescriptions per day.
2. Four undercover agents posed as patients with pain and Dr. Siao prescribed oxycodone and hydrocodone to them in increasing quantities over 17 visits
3. “Siao continued to prescribe opioids to the agents upon their request and with little to no physical examination, sometimes after visits lasting only a few minutes,” prosecutors said.
4. Siao prescribed opioids to a mother and son despite what they described as “obvious” red flags.
5. Prosecutors also claimed that Dr. Siao refused to heed warnings about his prescriptions after acknowledging guidelines from the California Medical Board on prescribing controlled substances.
6. Opioid prescriptions are dangerous.
7. Siao issued prescriptions for combinations of opioids, muscle relaxers and benzodiazepine, often known as the “Holy Trinity,” which the DOJ has criminalized.

You can see the complaint HERE:  Donald_siao_2021complaint

Dr. Siao was initially targeted in 2016 as the subject of a prescription fraud investigation by the California Department of Justice Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse, or BMFEA. When they reviewed a California CURES, they found that Dr. Siao had written the 8,201 prescriptions and switched the prosecution to the CSA, because that’s where the money is. Fraud just gets back what the prescriber charges. CSA conviction gets everything the doctor owns confiscated. And what they confiscate gets divided up between all of the participants in the OCDETF (Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force) multi-agency task force used in California to attack doctors. Doctors are now “organized crime”.

So as I predicted, the Ruan/Kahn Supreme Court decision that a doctor must show mens rea or intent to commit a crime to be convicted is not making a difference in the indictments or convictions of doctors in America.  Following the legal route of appeals for doctors convicted in the past is a slow, expensive process that most doctors, with all of their assets confiscated, can’t afford. What is needed is repeal of the Controlled Substance Act. The War on Drugs was purely a racist means of disenfranchising minorities in the early 1900’s. The attacked drug has changed over the years, from opium and cocaine, to marijuana and now prescription opioids. There is no basis for any of these substances being criminalized.  Drugs are not the cause of abuse or addiction. This is explained on Doctorsofcourage.org through the videos or the webinar recording listed on the top menu bar. People need to learn this, and share with everyone you know. We must stop these attacks on the medical profession. It has seriously destroyed our profession and it will take 50 years to regain respect as a result.