Access to appropriate medical treatment, as decided by a health care provider and the patient, has been significantly hampered by the war on drugs and the dissemination of misinformation about drug tolerance, dependence, addiction and abuse. Tens of thousands of persons who suffer severe or chronic pain - and their physicians - have been particularly hard-hit. Opioid analgesics (medication which reduces or relieves pain) are some of the most effective treatments for pain. But because these medications are classified having as high risk for abuse and are closely controlled by federal and state authorities, physicians, pharmacists and pain patients have been closely scrutinized by state and federal law enforcement officials with respect to the frequency and dosage of these medications.

As a result, many physicians feel inhibited from prescribing (and pharmacists from dispensing) appropriate and effective doses of opioid analgesics to patients in pain for fear of investigation, sanctioning or even prosecution by over-zealous (and misinformed) narcotics officers. The treatable pain of patients, in turn, continues unabated.

Two interventions for pain have been in the news recently. OxyContin is a powerful time-released opiate that provides relief from debilitating pain. Yet, because of stories of abuse where people crush tablets for a heroin-like high, lawmakers are looking at a variety of regulatory schemes that would make it more difficult and risky for doctors to prescribe and pharmacists to dispense this important and proven pain medication. If such regulations are enacted, it is likely that even more people will needlessly endure severe or chronic pain.

Medical marijuana is another medicine scientifically proven to alleviate certain chronic pain and related conditions. Yet medical marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that under federal law, it cannot be prescribed by physicians for any purpose. Standing in opposition to the federal law, eleven states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, including the treatment of severe pain.

The Drug Policy Alliance and DPA Network support the ability of the medical community to prescribe appropriate analgesics to patients without the fear of investigation, administrative sanctioning, or criminal prosecution by state and federal law enforcement officials. To this end, DPA represented professional organizations of pain specialist doctors in McFadden v. Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure, which challenged the revocation of a doctor's state license for the prescribing of opioid analgesics.

The Office of Legal Affairs submitted a friend-of-the court brief on behalf of the American Pain Foundation, National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain and the Ohio Pain Initiative in the case Howland vs. Purdue Pharma, which was filed in the 12th Appellate district in Ohio in 2003. In this case, a group of patients are suing Purdue Pharma for allegedly misrepresenting the effects of the drug Oxy-Contin. In their brief, the American Pain Foundation et al argue that the regulation and control of pain medications like Oxy-Contin could serve to exacerbate the problem of the undertreatment of pain in Ohio.

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