HEARD ELSEWHERE

Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006 | 8:17 a.m.

From an editorial in The Boston Globe on pain:

"Pain-killer" is one of medicine's overblown promises. The pain is often eased and delayed, not killed. In chronic cases, it always comes back. The last thing that patients and doctors should be worrying about as they use these imperfect medications is an arrest for substance abuse by overzealous police.

But there are places in this country where patients and physicians do have to worry. The CBS program "60 Minutes'' and New York Times columnist John Tierney have recently focused on the plight of a 47-year-old father of three and law school graduate serving a 25-year drug-trafficking sentence in Florida.

Richard Paey has had to use a wheelchair since an auto accident 21 years ago left him with screws in his spine and persistent pain. He also has multiple sclerosis. Despite three months of surveillance, police found no evidence he was selling any of his drugs, but a prosecutor still succeeded in convicting him on the grounds that he could not himself have used the 25 pills a day he was getting. Paey said he took that many pills, each of low dosage, to avoid higher-strength pills that could tempt drug abusers and draw the attention of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He is appealing his conviction. ...

Doctors and patients in chronic but not terminal cases face increasing scrutiny when patients need repeated prescriptions for large quantities of controlled substances. CBS interviewed Dr. Russell Portnoy, chairman of the department of pain medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in New York, who said, "There is a very deep concern on the part of the medical profession that the authorities don't know anything about pain medicine and are so afraid of prescription drug abuse that they tend to investigate or go after prescribers on the basis of very weak evidence."

But patients will suffer needlessly if prosecutors and the DEA do not fine-tune their investigations of suspected prescription abuse.

From an editorial in the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer on GIs:

America asks a lot of those who volunteer to serve in her armed forces. ... At the very least, those who spend a chunk of their youth in military uniform deserve to come home to a decent job.

Testimony before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee reveals that all too often that is not happening. The unemployment rate for young veterans is more than 15 percent, three times the national average, and double the jobless rate of nonveterans in the 20-24 age group. ...

It is primarily the young men and women who postponed going to work or college to voluntarily enlist for active duty, especially in this time of national peril, who deserve a better chance at the good life they took an oath to protect. The slogan is old, but the sentiment still applies: Don't forget, hire the vet.