This is a story I ran across about a doctor who specialized in pain reduction, which basically means he prescribed opiates. The facts, as I discovered them to be, are as follows. Because this is a very senstive area, due to so many drug war laws and such, he had an agreement with the DEA to provide them all his paperwork and records to avoid any hint of illegal distribution of drugs. Turns out something like 15 out of 400 of his patients lied to get higher dosages, or volumes of drugs, and then resold them, making a killing. The doctor discovered a few of them and stopped being their doctor, and he got suspicious of a few others, and watched them closely, along with telling the DEA of his suspicions.

Turns out the DEA already knew about some of the illegal actions taken by his patients, but they didn't bother to tell the doctor, or work with him in any way. They had bigger fish to fry; the doctor himself. Eventually they busted the doctor, bribed certain of those less than honest patients to testify agaisnt him, and somehow swung it so that none of his honest patients were allowed to testify, nor was he allowed to reveal to the court that he had been giving all his records tot he DEA and cooperating completely with them. In other words, someone wanted to make a big bust, so they picked him and railroaded him.

Drug policy in this country is so screwed up and ruins so many basically innocent lives that you would think a tipping point is coming (thanks Malcolm Gladwell) and people will get fed up with their neighbor being hauled to jail for 20 years for smoking a joint. Or how about all the kids that get caught with a tiny bit of pot and lose the right to federal grants and loans for college? That sends the message that it's ok to do drugs if you're rich, but if you're poor, you better not!