---

Not a War on Doctors
Over the last few months, we've been following the case of Bernard Rottschaefer, the Pennsylvania physician convicted of trading sex for OxyContin prescriptions. The prosecution's star witness was a prostitute named Jennifer Riggle, who testified she'd given Rottschaefer oral sex several times in exchange for opiate painkillers, which she then used to support her own habit, and sold on the black market. Under cross-examination, Rottschaefer's attorney asked Riggle whether or not the doctor was circumcised. She couldn't answer. For reasons I can't fathom, Rottschaefer was still convicted.

After the trial, Riggle's boyfriend -- who had been in prison throughout the trial -- released a series of letters she'd written to him in which she admitted to lying under oath....

...Of course, backing down from the plea would amount to an admission of wrongful prosecution on Buchanan's part. Better to let an innocent man go to jail and the lying dope dealer who put him there go free than admit to a mistaken, overly aggressive, politically damaging prosecution....

Not a War on Doctors, Ct'd
...Think about what's happening, here. Cops are walking into clinics disguised as pain patients. Once inside, they make a play for the doctor's compassion, duping him into writing a script for pain medication. Get him several times, and they move in for the arrest. They can then seize everything he owns. In some states, they can sell his stuff and split the bounty among the various investigating agencies before he ever goes to trial.

Think for a moment what this kind of policy does to the doctor-patient relationship. Think about how willing other doctors will be to prescribe similar pain meds to patients after reading stories like these in the newspaper. Think about whether it's wise to have drug cops dictating what is and isn't acceptable medical treatment.