After a lifetime of hard physical work, many of our older and disabled citizens suffer from chronic pain conditions that require regular medical treatment. But in 2010, Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, co-sponsored a pain-management bill that makes management of chronic pain much more difficult for both doctors and patients in Washington state.
Moeller’s ill-conceived law prohibits doctors from prescribing medically indicated and FDA-approved doses of painkillers (for a patient who reaches an established threshold of 120 mg of a morphine equivalent per day). In fact, in Washington state, doctors are only permitted to prescribe about one-third of the FDA-approved effective dose, far too little to properly treat these conditions in most patients. Doctors who prescribe more risk losing their state license. Some doctors even decided to stop seeing chronic pain patients altogether after Moeller’s law passed, creating another crisis as desperate patients turned to street drugs or were forced to leave the state.
Moeller, who works as a chemical-dependency counselor, has decided he knows more than you, your doctor, and the FDA about what medications and doses are appropriate. If you don’t think he should get between you and your doctor, let him know. Contact his office at 360-786-7872 and tell him “get your hands off my meds.”
Tom Sharples
Vancouver
