Email steve@steveariens.com
First they came for the mentally ill addicts, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a mentally ill addict.
Then they came for the empathetic prescribers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a empathetic prescriber.
Then they came for the Pharmacists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Pharmacist.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
SPOKANE, Wash. — Federal prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury that a cancer-stricken man and his family were illegally growing and distributing marijuana in the forest outside their northeastern Washington home despite claims by the “Kettle Falls Five” that they were instead raising legal medical cannabis for their personal use.
The case against Larry Harvey’s family has become a cause celebre among the marijuana community, which sees it as a prime example of the continued disconnect between state and federal marijuana laws. Washington state last summer allowed legal recreational sales, although the raid on the Harvey’s home happened in August 2012. And Congress late last year effectively barred the Justice Department from interfering with states that have medical marijuana systems.
Legalization advocates say it is a case of misguided federal marijuana laws and overzealous prosecutors unable or unwilling to accept the reality that most Americans would prefer to see pot users left alone.
“Some federal law enforcement officials are addicted to punishing people for marijuana-related offenses, and in this case the prosecutors are going on quite a bender,” said Robert Capecchi, deputy director of state policies for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project. “They appear to be going out of their way to bring the harshest penalties possible. Nobody should face years in prison for providing medical marijuana to seriously ill people whose doctors recommend it. Surely the DEA and federal prosecutors have more pressing matters to address than this.”
Federal prosecutors argue the group’s medical marijuana claims are just a cover. They say evidence shows the group had been growing far more marijuana than they admit, and seized records they say show the group was paying people to process marijuana for illegal distribution.
“This is clearly a for-profit marijuana grow operation and a criminal act by people who are trying to set up an affirmative defense to their crimes under state law,” prosecutors wrote in rejecting the group’s efforts to have the case dismissed. “The defendant seems to imply that all a person needs to do to avoid federal prosecution for manufacturing marijuana in the state of Washington is to claim that he was manufacturing medical marijuana. It is clear that the defendants are hiding behind the medical marijuana laws in Washington in order to profit from their manufacture of marijuana.”
The judge on Feb. 18 dismissed the charges against Harvey, 71, because he’s suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer, but allowed prosecutors to keep pressing their case against his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Family friend Jason Zucker on Feb. 24 agreed to a plea bargain, the details of which have been sealed. The three remaining defendants face lengthy prison sentences in part because police seized several firearms after spotting the outdoor grow from a helicopter.
“This president campaigned on respecting state medical marijuana and not going after individual patients who are acting in accordance with those laws,” said Tom Angell of the pro-legalization Marijuana Majority. “The fact that his administration is prosecuting this case is shameful and contrary to his campaign pledges. These prosecutions need to be stopped, especially because Congress just passed an amendment in December that is supposed to prevent the Justice Department from interfering with state medical marijuana laws.”
The federal judge in the case has barred the group from claiming protection under medical marijuana laws. In his order, the judge effectively said prosecutors simply had to prove the group was growing marijuana, and that growing and possessing marijuana remains against federal law.
“They can’t put on a medical necessity defense. They can’t talk about state medical marijuana law,” said Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access, which supports the family but isn’t paying for its defense. “Normally these cases don’t go to trial, and people typically take plea bargains because they have no defense. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is continuing to aggressively try this case at considerable expense to taxpayers.”
Hermes, who has been attending the trial, said the family is fighting the charges because they think it’s the right thing to do. But he added: “I’ve never seen a jury acquit a federal medical marijuana defendant.”
The trial is expected to last into next week.
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“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Jails across the country have become vast warehouses made up primarily of people too poor to post bail or too ill with mental health or drug problems to adequately care for themselves, according to a report issued Wednesday.
The study, “Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America,” found that the majority of those incarcerated in local and county jails are there for minor violations, including driving with suspended licenses, shoplifting or evading subway fares, and have been jailed for longer periods of time over the past 30 years because they are unable to pay court-imposed costs.
The report, by the Vera Institute of Justice, comes at a time of increased attention to mass incarceration policies that have swelled prison and jail populations around the country. This week in Missouri, where the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer stirred months of racial tension last year in the town of Ferguson, 15 people sued that city and another suburb, Jennings, alleging that the cities created an unconstitutional modern-day debtors’ prison, putting impoverished people behind bars in overcrowded, unlawful and unsanitary conditions.
While most reform efforts, including early releases and the elimination of some minimum mandatory sentences, have been focused on state and federal prisons, the report found that the disparate rules that apply to jails is also in need of reform.
“It’s an important moment to take a look at our use of jails,” said Nancy Fishman, the project director of the Vera Institute’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections and an author of the report. “It’s a huge burden on taxpayers, on our communities, and we need to decide if this is how we want to spend our resources.”
The number of people housed in jails on any given day in the country has increased from 224,000 in 1983 to 731,000 in 2013 — nearly equal to the population of Charlotte, N.C. — even as violent crime nationally has fallen by nearly 50 percent and property crime has dropped by more than 40 percent from its peak.
Inmates have subsequently been spending more time in jail awaiting trial, in part because of the growing reluctance of judges to free suspects on their own recognizance pending trial dates, which had once been common for minor offenses.
As a result, many of those accused of misdemeanors — who are often poor — are unable to pay bail as low as $500.
Timed with the release of the Vera Institute report, the MacArthur Foundation announced Wednesday that it would invest $75 million over five years in 20 jurisdictions that are seeking alternatives to sending large numbers of people to jail. The jurisdictions, which could be cities, counties or other entities that run local jails, will be announced this spring.
Nationwide, the annual number of jail admissions is 19 times higher than the number of those sent to prison, and has nearly doubled since 1983, from about 6 million to 11.7 million. A significant number are repeat offenders, the report said.
In Chicago, for instance, 21 percent of the people sent to local jails from 2007 to 2011 accounted for 50 percent of all jail admissions.
In New York City, the figures were even starker: From 2009 to 2013, about 400 people were sent to jail on at least 18 occasions each, which accounted for more than 10,000 jail admissions and 300,000 days in jail.
The study found that the share of people in jail accused or convicted of crimes related to illegal drugs increased from 9 percent in 1983 to about 25 percent in 2013, and that they were disproportionately African-Americans.
And the study said that while 68 percent of jail inmates had a history of abusing drugs, alcohol or both, jail-based drug treatment programs had been underfunded.
Justin Volpe, 31, a peer recovery specialist in Miami for the Dade County courts, said he spent 45 days in jail in 2007 after being arrested on a petty theft charge. Mr. Volpe, who was homeless, addicted to drugs and suffering from an untreated mental illness at the time of his arrest, said drug treatment and a court-mandated diversion program that included counseling and medication had probably saved his life.
“It was the extra push I needed,” he said.
But Mr. Volpe said there were too few drug and alcohol treatment programs available to those in jail, where there is a close correlation between drug addiction and mental illness.
The Vera Institute report, for instance, found that more than four of five inmates with a mental illness were not treated in jail and that 34 percent of those with mental illness in jail had been using drugs at the time of their arrest, compared with 20 percent of the rest of the jail population.
Still, seeking mental health services sometimes meant longer stints in jail, the report said. In Los Angeles, those seeking help spent more than twice as much time in custody than did others — 43 days, compared with 18 days.
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http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/lawsuit/healthcare-fraud.html#.VPO0d-FPrZX
Medicare is a government administered health insurance program for Americans aged 65 or older, or who are disabled. In addition to providing hospital and doctor expenses, it now provides options such as prescription drug coverage. Medicare fraud occurs when a person, company or organization intentionally submits Medicare reimbursement claims without having performed the duties being reimbursed, or having conducted medically unnecessary procedures for the purpose of billing the government.
Upcoding is a form of Medicare fraud that occurs when a healthcare provider uses the wrong code for a procedure to obtain a higher payment for work conducted. This is a violation of the False Claims Act.
Are repetitive ESI’s that does not produce positive outcomes or only produces positive outcomes for a very short time frame… or the physician requires pt to have ESI’s in order to get oral meds..
The insurance company that will not enforce the contract that those within their pharmacy network that decline to fill legit/on time/medically necessary Rxs.
There are probably laws being violated that will/could be considered healthcare fraud.. that we have not even consider yet !
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Discreetly captures color AVI video in 640 x 480 resolution. Also captures high-resolution still images in JPEG format.
Lets you store up to 90 minutes of video and easily transfer media to your PC.
Allows up to 90 minutes of use between charges.
Makes it easy to track exact recording times for simple recall.
For a convincing look and write functionality.
Have you noticed that nearly every major retailer in the US has almost as many video cameras in their stores and parking lots as they do light fixtures. Here is the FL statue on video recording in a public place
Here is the Chapter and Verse of Florida’s Electronic Communications, Chapter 934 “Security of Communication Surveillance” and Title XLVII – “Criminal Procedure and Corrections.”
The full text of the statutes are available online and way too long to include in a post here for the space is limited.
There are more than a few cases interpreting when recording is legal and not. One point has been made, however, if a conversation takes place in a public place where it could be overheard by others — even if through an open window — it is not protected speech for privacy and subject to the ‘all parties’ rule.
If you at the pharmacy register at a major chain store, it is pretty good bet that you are going to be recorded. It has been stated that many of the major retailers don’t record audio.. so that it can’t be held against them when their employees do/say something stupid. A system designed for plausible deniability when a customer has a complaint about one of their employees.
There is a lot of evidence out there, that Pharmacists, techs and store staff have lied to pts about the availability of inventory of their Rxs medications being on hand and/or the reason – if any – why their Rx for controlled substances could not be filled.
So if their employer does not have audio recording in their in store camera system and the Rx dept staff is not above lying to pts.. without some sort of documentation of what actually transpired … it is going to be your word against theirs. In the medical community the saying goes .. “if it is not documented.. it didn’t happen…”
Let the games begin !
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#chronicpain patients – Please fill out this pain community needs assessment survey. We are working hard to get 500 surveys completed by 3/1/2015. This information will be used for empowering projects which will provide better daily living tools, awareness, and treatment access for pain patients. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/?sm=pwzcOaO8ChDmsJwZ%2foFmOZXI9E3No2lVruW2LdP7%2fvg%3d
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Ask him what his stand is on MMJ… http://www.ontheissues.org/HuffPo_Q19.htm and on the war on drugs… http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/Marco_Rubio_Drugs.htm He is proposing sanctions against Venezuela until they quit violating the human rights of their citizens. Apparently he hasn’t taken a good look that the militarization of our local police forces. The “No-Knock” invasion of homes … many of who have been shot and or shot and killed… in their own homes.
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I read and talk to pts that a Pharmacist want to see their MRI.. before they will consider filling one of your pain meds. Call their bluff.. show them your MRI.. but DON’T SHOW THEM THE RADIOLOGIST’S report.. have the report with you and let them “evaluate” your MRI.. compare their “evaluation” of your MRI against that of a EXPERT in reading MRI’s. Watch them make a fool of themselves trying to make heads/tails of what your MRI shows about your medical issues.
Filed under: General Problems | 6 Comments »
https://www.facebook.com/groups/APFActionNetworkFlorida/
There is this closed chronic pain group that I belong to, back in 2012 they had a rally at the Florida Capital while the legislature was in session. Just after Gov Scott & AG Bondi came to power. They gathered a lot of media attention at the time.
They were planning another rally this year… the people in the dept at the state house that grants permits for such rallies, kept screwing around for a month or more granting a single date. All kind of excuses, emails, phone calls not returned.. The person in charge of getting this date was quite clear that the group wanted a date when the legislators were in session…
Finally this week the group was provided a date… April 3, 2015 a four hour window to legally rally/demonstrate at the state house.. The members of the group was all putting together the details of getting themselves there for the rally..
As I was looking at my calendar last night I noticed that April 3rd is GOOD FRIDAY.. a little more research and it would appear that GOOD FRIDAY in a dozen or so states – INCLUDING FLORIDA – is a STATE HOLIDAY…
So the group got a date to rally at the Capital/Legislator … WHEN NO ONE WAS GOING TO BE HOME !
Anyone want to take a guess how effective a rally will be to make an impression on the legislators when THEY AREN’T THERE.. and since they are not there.. what is the chance that the media will be “hanging around” that day???
You are telling me that state employees don’t know when there are state holidays.. that they DON’T HAVE TO WORK ? The same employees that are organizing these lists and assigning dates/times for various groups to have a rally on PUBLIC PROPERTY ?
There has been a lot of news lately about pts not getting their medically necessary meds in Florida on the local TV channels… Don’t these state employees work directly/indirectly for Gov Scott & Bondi ? Could there be some undue influence on these employees to manipulate dates assigned based on some approved/disapproved list from one of these offices ?
I guess that it is hard to suppress the FREE PRESS… but.. I guess that it is much easier to suppress FREE SPEECH from individuals or small groups..
That report last night on ABC station in Tampa http://www.abcactionnews.com/money/consumer/taking-action-for-you/legitmate-patients-say-they-are-living-with-pain-after-pharmacies-turn-them-away
Rep Bilirakis is introducing a bill to allow legit pts to get their meds… IMO.. that is PURE BS… just call the AG before Congress you know the one that is already in CONTEMPT of Congress and have them go after the wholesalers who are restricting trade and rationing what a pharmacy can purchase. The last I heard, there was no wholesaler rationing for hospitals, nursing homes and hospice pharmacies… only community/retail pharmacy. I have a app on my IPHONE that tells me what medications are in manufacturer back order and out of the 300 currently listed.. there are TWO opiate based meds.. neither one a highly used dosage form. There is NO EVIDENCE of a shortage of opiates from the manufacturers.
That is what we need more laws, when we can’t get the DOJ to enforce the laws on the books.
IMO… the bottom line to get this train back on the track is going to fall on the backs of the pts that are being abused/tortured and kept in pain.
I have created a couple of template letters on http://www.chronicpainresourcecenter.com/
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I am told that another lawsuit was filed today against CVS Health by a “legacy Pharmacist” over E.E.O.C. (age discrimination) and “severe retaliation ” Below is a list of articles that I am aware about that have been filed and/or won against CVS Health. No one knows for sure how many other such lawsuit against CVS Health are floating around out there… No one knows how many other CVS Health “Legacy Pharmacists” have been kicked to the curb and did not realize that their rights were being violated. Since CVS Health brought out the mandatory medication contract for employees to sign a few months ago.. there must be a great deal of pending or potential other such lawsuits. Only time will tell…
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