Medicaid patients' presciption drugs going to dealers -Officials have charged 33 people so far

[kpete]

Source: MSNBC

Medicaid patients' presciption drugs going to dealers
Officials have charged 33 people so far in a large-scale investigation

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Ethel Johnson couldn't get her prescription for pain medication filled fast enough. The 60-year-old Buffalo woman was hurting — but investigators say that wasn't the reason for the rush.

According to secretly recorded telephone conversations, the sooner Johnson could pick up her pills, the more quickly she could sell them to her dealer. Her pain pills were destined for the street.

Johnson is among 33 people charged so far in a large-scale investigation that has opened a window into an emerging class of suppliers in the illicit drug trade: medical patients, including many who rely on the publicly funded Medicaid program to pay for their appointments and prescriptions. She has pleaded not guilty.

For the first time, the Buffalo investigators devoted the kinds of resources normally aimed at street drugs like heroin or crack — wiretaps, buys, surveillance and cross-agency cooperation to trace the drugs from pharmacy to street. Even they were taken aback by the burgeoning market for the kinds of pills found in medicine cabinets in typical American homes.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40521295/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

[Odin2005]

1. Looks like the PTB have started the anti-Medicaid propaganda.

That is not to say that this BS is not going on, just that it will be inevitably hyped up and blown out of proportion in order to destroy Medicaid, just like welfare fraud was used to attack welfare.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

2. If this is true and these people are guilty I hope they fucking rot in prison hell....

It is because of bastards like this that really sick people like me have to suffer.

[2Design]

3. is this like the cadillac story to get people against medicaid like they

did against welfare

[Downwinder]

4. All my prescriptions go through the computer system.

To abuse my medication would require complicity of Pharmacies/Insurer/CMS.

They keep close tabs on the refills. Medicaid was the same way.

[Mojorabbit]

5. There is a demand for prescription

drugs out there though. Even more than when I was a teen in the 70's and people were selling their qualude and black beauty rxs. My nephews age group.. kids we know have been busted for xanax.
Still, the pharmacies keep close tabs on prescriptions these days and the dea keeps tabs on what docs are prescribing when it comes to narcotics. This makes the people who have genuine pain end up as victums because legit docs are paranoid about treating them.

[Exultant Democracy]

6. Most often minorities in genuine pain are the ones that get the shaft. -Surprise

[Ginto]

7. Legalize it. nt

[Akoto]

8. Legalize what? Abuse of a doctor's prescription?

I am on pain management, and since I was approved to go on SSI, Medicaid has been a blessing. People who do this crap make it more difficult for those of us with legit pain to get help.

There is no way I would legalize the random, unsupervised selling of drugs like OxyContin (mentioned in the article). I don't even consider what I take to be safe without a doctor's supervision. Pain medication can do some rather bad things to you if abused or used inappropriately. It's even worse if you suddenly run out while dependent or, worse yet, addicted.

[Ginto]

9. Make it so you don't need a prescription to get it. If you're over 18, you just go to the counter.

nt

[The Flaming Red Head]

10. People in wheelchairs without enough money to pay their bills

and are in pain and don't want to sell their little cache of freedom from agony, but are forced to, or it's, live on the streets. It ain't a pretty world out there. Shame on anyone who doesn't understand this story. You're too rich, too well and you don't understand what it's like to live in poverty and be unable to go and out and work.