Sun editorial:

Overprescribing drugs

DEA takes appropriate action against Henderson doctor linked to eight deaths

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008 | 2:03 a.m.

Much of what the public knows about the Drug Enforcement Administration is captured on television and in the movies, where DEA agents are depicted going after cocaine suppliers and other seedy characters who smuggle illicit narcotics and peddle them on the streets. But the agency can play an equally valuable role by punishing health care professionals who overprescribe medication.

That was the case Thursday when the agency suspended Dr. Kevin Buckwalter, a Henderson physician, from prescribing controlled substances. The doctor’s attorney, who is also his brother, said they will fight the suspension. But the agency alleged at least eight of the doctor’s patients since 2005 have died of drug overdoses and that his activities constituted “an imminent danger to public health and safety.”

The Las Vegas Sun began writing extensively about Buckwalter in September following investigative stories by Marshall Allen and Alex Richards into Nevada’s status as one of the leading states in per capita consumption of narcotics. Nevada ranks first in the use of hydrocodone, which can be found in the painkillers Vicodin and Lortab.

Timothy Landrum, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles division, said in a statement obtained by Allen that more Americans abuse prescription drugs than cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and inhalants combined.

We are glad to see the DEA took action against Buckwalter, who has also been found by the Nevada Medical Examiners Board in an ongoing investigation to have committed malpractice in four cases. We also agree with Dr. Andrea Trescot, a nationally known Florida pain specialist, who criticized the federal agency for taking so long to act against Buckwalter.

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Dec. 23, 2008

5:42 a.m.

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