The United States currently has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, higher than all communist nations including China, Cuba, and
North Korea. As of 2021, over 2,000,000 people are prisoners in the United States, which equates to over 25% of the world’s prison population and gives this nation an incarceration rate of 629 people per 100,000 of population-a 10-fold increase since the early 1970’s. Federal prisons hold over three times more people than state or county prisons due to this ten-fold growth in the past 5+ decades. According to World Population Review, mass incarceration in the United States is a well-defined civil rights issue designed to dehumanize low-income and marginalized communities as well as minorities and fails to improve community safety. Over 72% of federal prisoners were convicted on nonviolent drug charges and had no history of violence, 34% were convicted as first-time offenders, and 87% did not involve any weapons. Perhaps the most disturbing statistic is that black and brown Americans are incarcerated nearly 7 times more frequently than their white neighbors. Equally disturbing is that the US Department of Justice boasts a 99% conviction rate: 98% plead guilty, 2% go to trial of which less than 1% are found “not guilty” by either judge or jury. These statistics reflect the tyranny of the US Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration (USDOJ/DEA) and prove that trials in federal court are devoid of both truth and justice.
I am in that meager 1%. I was wrongfully indicted in 2019 and was not given a trial until April 2024, nearly 5 years after the arrest. Since the arrest, I have been stripped of my ability to support my family in any way with “conditions of bond” including no work in healthcare, monthly reporting to “an officer of the court” and a public record of being under such conditions. The belief that you are presumed innocent until proven guilty is, unfortunately, a myth. The indictment included turning myself in at the federal courthouse to the US Marshall, being booked with mug shot, fingerprints, DNA swab, shackled and handcuffed with a chain around my waist, surrendering my passport and then appearing before a judge, still in shackles and handcuffs, all before I said a word.
Researching the criminalization of medicine, we have analyzed over 3000 health care practitioners who have been persecuted by the USDOJ/DEA and found that nearly 2/3 were physicians with the other 1/3 consisting of pharmacists, midlevel providers, nurses, medical assistants and clinic owners. Of the nearly 2000 physicians, 85% were over age 50 years when attacked, nearly 18% were brown or black including FMG’s (Foreign Medical Graduates), and over 60% of Caucasian physicians who were indicted, were Jewish. This is in comparison to 10.8% of 950,000 practicing physicians practicing designated as brown or black and 15% designated as Jewish. Currently the USDOJ/DEA is targeting solo or small group practitioners, over age 50 who are brown, black, FMG, or Jewish, with successful practices. The US insurance companies, including Medicare, have joined forces with the USDOJ/DEA to identify the top billing practices in their network, verify the practitioner’s assets, then fabricate a crime to confiscate (steal) those assets. So currently, in the US, if you are a solo or small group physician or midlevel practitioner approaching the age of 50 and have a successful practice, it is no longer IF you will be indicted, it is WHEN, particularly if you are brown, black, or Jewish.
June 2022 brought about a landmark unanimous Supreme Court case with the US v Ruan, which should have eliminated the wrongful persecution of physicians, yet it hasn’t. Justice Breyer wrote in his opinion “The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly or intentionally acted in an unauthorized manner”. Yet the government persists in sending in wired “cooperating source” patients to try to dupe physicians into writing controlled substances for them, with these “patients” always having a multiple year history of the prescriptions they are requesting on their PDMP (electronic Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) and report improvement of function on their return visits. This is a far cry from these wired “patients” coming in and asking for pills to sell or simply to get high, which would confirm the criminal intent of the prescriber and distinguish them from those who refuse and are intentionally practicing legitimate medicine. The government’s approach is quite simply, entrapment using manipulation and deception, with the goal of the USDOJ/DEA to arrest those who are manipulated and duped.
It is estimated that nearly 60 million people (about twice the population of Texas) in the United States of America live with chronic pain, many of which are now unable to acquire the very medicines that allow them to function. At the same time, the number of deaths due to drug poisonings related to illicit drugs remains well over 100,000 per year. Clearly, the aggressive attack on physicians is not impacting the opioid-related death rates. The current lack of appropriate treatment is also leading to an unprecedented increase in the number of suicides in this population. The VA hospitals are the most egregious with the director of Pain Management in Houston Texas, admitting he no longer prescribes opioids and has never prescribed carisoprodol (Soma) for our veterans.
The only solution these 60 million living men and women have, other than suicide or resorting to the increasingly lethal and abundant illicit drugs is to garner the support of the very physicians who are refusing to treat them. The medical community has a duty to refuse to practice at “opiate free” hospitals and institutions and to refuse all insurance who deny opiate pain medication and effective muscle relaxants, including Medicare and Medicaid. Pharmacists have a duty to their patients, to collectively refuse to enter the PDMP data, thus ending the tyrannical surveillance state of the USDOJ. The tyrannical efforts of the USDOJ/DEA on the practice of medicine is stripping the individual states of their ability to regulate medical practices, stripping practitioners of their ability to practice with compassion, and stripping patients of their human right to live without suffering from uncontrolled pain.
Yet, amidst the chaos, increasing government tyranny, and despair, a flicker of hope remains. For within the hearts of 60 million Americans living with chronic pain lies a resilience that defies comprehension. It is a resilience born not of strength but of necessity, a testament to the human spirit’s indomitable will to survive. As the walls of injustice close in around them, the medical community stands at a crossroads. Will they succumb to the tyranny of silence, or will they rise up in defiance, reclaiming their voice and their dignity? The answer lies not in the halls of power but in the hearts of those who dare to dream of a better tomorrow.
