Prescription Painkillers Cause Problems for Patients, Doctors and Prosecutors

Before his first trial date in 2001, Paey declined a deal of pleading guilty to a lesser offense and accepting house arrest and probation -- but no prison time. But Paey said he could not plead guilty to a crime he insists to this day he did not commit.

Patient or Criminal?

In Florida, the illegal possession of certain prescription painkillers -- in amounts more than 28 grams, enough to fill less than two bottles -- is considered drug trafficking. The penalty is equivalent to that meted out to hard-core heroin dealers -- a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. Prosecutors convinced a jury that Paey had forged enough prescriptions to qualify as a drug trafficker. He is barely a year into serving the sentence.

Paey and his supporters consider his case a classic example of law enforcement meddling in medicine and treating chronic pain patients as addicts and criminals. "It's a culture that's creating fear among the patients and the doctors," he said. "It's turning patients against doctors and the doctors against the patients."

But Andringa said Paey illegally manipulated the medical system, forging prescriptions and tricking different doctors into giving him more medicine than he was supposed to get.

"If Mr. Paey is the poster boy for the pain patients of the world, then I suppose Enron is the symbol for corporate responsibility," he said, "And I realize that sounds kind of harsh, but I really believe in my heart that people like Mr. Paey have made the treatment of pain more difficult for patients, for doctors."

Ironically enough, Paey is now getting the treatment for his chronic pain that he had such trouble finding outside of the prison walls. A morphine pump the size of a hockey puck has been sewn into his side, delivering a controlled dose of medication.

Paey is appealing his conviction. But should it stand, he could very well find himself locked up until he is an old man.

A Law Enforcement Scourge

Suspicion is not unique to Paey's story. Across the country, there is a thriving black market in prescription painkillers -- in some places known as "hillbilly heroin" -- that has become a major cause of crime and a focus of law enforcement.

In Kingsport, Tenn., an industrial town nestled in the Appalachian foothills, a sting operation led to the arrest of Dr. William Hurwitz, a Virginia internist who specialized in treating pain. Prosecutors claim hundreds of his prescriptions wound up in the hands of drug dealers who sold painkillers across the mid-Atlantic region. He claims he was scammed by his patients, but a jury convicted Hurwitz of drug trafficking in December. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison but is appealing his conviction.