Richard Stehl, MD, an internist in Montgomery, AL, was arrested August 9, 2018. He was escorted out of his practice in handcuffs and taken to jail. The law that the DEA complained about on 60 minutes, stating it “tied their hands behind their back”, prevents them from revoking a doctor’s controlled substance certificate without showing just cause. So in order to pressure Dr. Stehl to give up his certificate on his own, he was threatened to be held in jail until trial as a “danger to the community”.  It’s a decision every nearly every doctor arrested in a federal investigation has had to make pending bond. So now the government violates the 14th amendment without worries of repercussions.  Our government is OUT OF CONTROL!!!

“Our position remains that so long as Dr. Stehl was able to practice medicine and prescribe drugs he created a danger to the community.”  “That danger could only be alleviated by him giving up his licenses,” Stated Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Ross. “Dr. Stehl waived the detention hearing on the basis of an agreement where he will be placed on home detention with electronic monitoring. He won’t prescribe any medicine and he won’t prescribe any drugs.”

So he is already being treated like a criminal. Forget the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.” DEA agent Bret Hamilton and Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Ross should be charged with violation of Dr. Stehl’s 14th amendment right. This is the right of depriving a person of liberty or property without due process. Putting someone in a jail cell and saying that’s where you are going to stay unless you relinquish your ability to earn a living, is a violation of that right. It is also a tactic to get a person to cave to a plea. Such tactics are widespread now, since exposed in License to Lie by Sidney Powell in chapters 8 and 16. A taste of the local jail will make any innocent law-abiding citizen plea to save themselves from years in prison. Since the government is primarily after forfeiture of assets, and legal genocide of the expendable populations the doctors treat, they welcome these pleas. Also, by completely taking his profession away from him, it leaves him without an income to support himself and provide a defense. Looks like the government is getting rather desperate to force innocent physicians to plea. Or they are pretty full of themselves with the abuses of power they wield against innocent physicians.

A doctor shouldn’t give up their license or certificate because he more than likely will never get them back. Dr. Stehl spent 4 days in jail, but he finally succumbed to the pressure. In the process of his bond release, he surrendered his medical license and therefore his controlled substance certificate. That throws all of his patients to the streets immediately, with no coverage of needs. Dr. Stehl’s attorney, Andrew Skier, stated his client’s decision to voluntarily surrender his licenses is not an admission of guilt.

“Dr. Stehl was placed  in a position where he had to make a choice, and the choice was either voluntarily relinquish those licenses or face the possibility of incarceration until this case is resolved, which could take a significant amount of time,” said Skier. “Faced with that, Dr. Stehl made the choice that any of us would make, which was to voluntarily surrender his license.”

Dr. Stehl was charged with distribution of a controlled substance using the Controlled Substance Act illegally, as all doctors are now being targeted.  His charges are based on treatment of patients for over-prescribing “medically unnecessary” opioids.  This is also illegal use of the CSA, as doctors are specifically exempted from the law for treatment of patients. And the Supreme Court has made multiple conclusive decisions supporting that, stating that drug distribution is as conventionally understood—the distribution of drugs on the street. The government also abused another system not designed for them in the first place, by looking at the Prescription Monitoring Program to see how many prescriptions the doctor has written. Dr. Stehl was ranked in the top 0.9 percent of prescribers in Alabama. That just means that he is one of the few pain management physicians left in the area. The PDMP is now being used across the country to target the doctors who prescribe the most controlled substances. And current bills before Congress have included statutes to widen that trap for unsuspecting doctors. That action alone will be responsible for sending the greatest number of people at a time to the streets for self-treatment and possible overdose, or increased stress leading to addiction.  The GOVERNMENT is the cause of the rise in overdoses, deaths, and addiction in this country, not doctors. Doctors are VICTIMS.

Another problem: Instead of sticking together to stop this flagrant government overreach into medicine, the government is forcing medical professionals to testify against each other. The raid on Dr. Stehl happened as a result of Drs. Gilberto Sanchez and Julio Delgado, past victims of government abuse who pleaded guilty, making statements about Stehl prescribing unnecessary controlled substances in the hopes of reduced sentences for themselves. But since the Controlled Substance Act states that only the doctor can determine what is legitimate, those statements are out of order. But, of course, the government will use them, and those doctors might receive leniency for throwing another doctor under the bus.

Addendum

Dr. Stehl was convicted in a jury trial December, 2019. He was sentenced to 15 years. Pray that we are able to end these illegal attacks and exonerate all the innocent physicians before he spends all that time behind bars.

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:

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 trespassed. 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 Dr. Stehl 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.