February 28, 2007
More on the Prescription Scandal
The Albany Times Union puts together a special section on Tuesday's drug bust, including photos and video. This article shows just how easy it is to buy drugs over the Internet:
The investigator logged onto Stephenson's former Web site, Docstat.com, and placed an order, describing himself as a 4-foot-tall, overweight airline pilot with a heroin addiction and drinking problem.
The reason for the prescription?
"I want to get high to fly," the undercover investigator wrote.
Two days later, the prescription drugs he ordered from Stephenson arrived via an express mail courier.
And this disturbing story discusses the doctors that are willing to write these prescriptions.
It was Feb. 5, and a judge methodically arraigned the disgraced physician from Queens on a 13-count felony indictment. He explained her predicament before ordering her return to jail without bail on charges ranging from forgery to criminal diversion of prescription medicines.
Santi, 68, a documented alcoholic, hasn't had a valid license to practice medicine in New York in eight years.
But authorities say that didn't stop her from writing thousands of prescriptions for Internet customers in multiple states. Every "script" was money in her pocket, and the Web sites peddling the drugs didn't care about her background -- she was in the game and had access to another doctor's legitimate Drug Enforcement Agency prescription number.
They did it for money:
Authorities in Albany said the Web sites compete for doctors, offering to pay them $25 to $50 per prescription or, in some cases, lump sums of between $5,000 and $8,000 a week.
And once again, it points out why this problem is so difficult to control. There is a huge demand out there for drugs. The amount of money drives research for ways to hide use, and ways to keep the supply pipeline open. Given the amount of drugs flowing out of this place, the lack of positive tests in MLB last year seems wrong.
I'm sorry to say this, but the leagues aren't going to fix this, no matter how long they suspend people. It's just too easy to produce new substances and too easy to find ways to hide them. The combination of risk of getting caught with the penalty for getting caught produces a cost too low to deter use. I fear the government needs to expand its focus to not only catching the suppliers, but also prosecuting the users. A supplier, unfortunately, is easy to replace. A star athlete is not. Jail time at the height of someone's career, plus the disruptions to a season due to trials and such might impose a cost that's not worth paying, either by the team or by the athlete. The state doesn't need a urine test. They just need to follow an order from inception to delivery. I wonder how different this whole mess would have progressed if the FBI took action in the early 1990s against Canseco and McGwire?
Posted by David Pinto at
08:02 AM
|
Cheating
|
TrackBack (0)
Or.....
Do the rational thing and legalize all scheduled drugs and save billions in wasted tax payer revenue, all the while eliminating the #1 cause of gang violence and over-crowding in jails.
yeah, it IS easy to buy drugs legally over the internet. i got into that, um, discussion (ahem) a couple years back and bought some anabolic steroid after telling them i was a 7 months pregnant 18 year old (and female, duh...)
the doctors who dish this stuff out should get the same prison time and treatment like big cocaine/heroine street dealers