Your Local Drug Pusher May Be as Close as Your Nearest Doctor’s Office

Many people know that too many doctors may be involved in distributing addictive drugs illegally, but when the true magnitude of these crimes is revealed, the result is shocking and heartbreaking. A review of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s listings of the doctors under indictment or that have been sentenced for illegal distribution of drugs of abuse lists more than a hundred U.S. doctors in all corners of the country.

Florida leads the list with eighteen doctors that have been charged, followed by ten in Pennsylvania, six in Michigan, five in New Jersey and Indiana, four each in California, Tennessee, Louisiana, New York and Georgia. Twenty-four other states had between one and three doctors charged or convicted.

Prescription drug abuse is the problem that brought radio show personality Rush Limbaugh to his knees, along with athletes who start out being treated for injuries, young people seeking a thrill, and “soccer moms” who get on a pain pill and then find they can’t quit when the pain goes away.

One doctor in Florida was just sentenced in January 2009 for the illegal distribution of more than 50 million hydrocodone pills through 13 websites. Another doctor from Houston, Texas, distributed nearly 1.8 million dosage units of hydrocodone and 2,500 gallons of promethazine with codeine, a drug for the treatment of colds that is commonly abused in Texas. A doctor in Missouri was found to have illegally distributed more than 1.7 million dosage units of various controlled drugs over a two-year period.

Some of the doctors received manslaughter charges when their indiscriminate dispensing caused the deaths of patients: three for a doctor in New Mexico, five for a Maryland doctor distributing opiates and benzodiazepines, one for a doctor in New York, and two for a Florida doctor. And these are only the deaths that are known about.

“Criminal doctors like these create vast amounts of human wreckage,” affirmed Derry Hallmark, the Director of Admissions and Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor at Narconon Arrowhead. Narconon Arrowhead is one of the country’s leading drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma.

“Government figures of those who are abusing just prescription painkillers alone top 12 million people each year,” Mr. Hallmark added. “Prescription pain reliever is just one of several classes of addictive drugs that are abused. Many addicted people started their addictions with a doctor like one of these. The only way to return these people to a drug-free lifestyle is through effective drug rehabilitation. The Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program returns more than 70 percent of its graduates to a fully drug-free life through its innovative program that is itself drug-free.”

To find immediate help for anyone who is having a problem with any kind of drug or alcohol, contact Narconon’s free addiction consultation and referral helpline at 1-800-468-6933 or visit their website at http://www.stopaddiction.com/. The Narconon program was founded in 1966 by William Benitez in Arizona State prison, and is based on the humanitarian works of L. Ron Hubbard. In more than 90 centers around the world, Narconon programs restore drug and alcohol abusers and addicts to a clean and sober lifestyle.