Putting the doctors back in charge
WATE:
Drug enforcers have proposed that doctors should be allowed to write prescriptions for 90-day supplies of some powerful painkillers.
The Drug Enforcement Agency says physicians should be able to treat chronic pain under “accepted medical community standards” just as they do other ailments. So the agency plans to eliminate the restrictions on drugs like Oxycontin and codeine that were imposed to prevent abuse by addicts.
Doctors have complained that strict regulations kept them from writing prescriptions for more than a month at a time, and kept their patients coming back every month for otherwise needless office visits.
