Drugged Up Maryland

                                             Drugged Up Maryland

Drugs have found their way into every facet of Maryland life. Children are overdosed with amphetamines. While our aged population is controlled by third generation antidepressants. Those in between have alcohol, opioids, psychotropic drugs and now Marijuana. Controlling the masses has never been easier.

Marijuana industry is coming to the entitlement state. Initially 14 licensees have been chosen from a group of 140. Though the state’s Marijuana Commission notes the newly licensed were carefully picked evidence suggests many are politically well connected. Claiming “Medical Marijuana” will be of the purest variety by their choices the Commission needs to explain why not one pharmaceutical company was chosen. Yet someone from the casino industry was.

Decriminalization of Marijuana at the state level has been on the road to reality for years. In Maryland the drug epidemic, both legal and illegal, has gone beyond manageable levels. Adding Marijuana to the mix elevates the problem exponentially. As long as the drug is used in the privacy of one’s home who is to argue with its need and questionable medical necessity. Sense and sensibility dictates the latter will not be the norm. Instead people will mix Marijuana with the other drugs they utilize, including alcohol, resulting an increase in fatalities more expansive than currently is seen. Decriminalization absolutely, providing this drug through state approved outlets is extremely questionable and introduces a series of unknowns.

Physicians, who chose to prescribe Marijuana, must be on a state approved list. Once approved they must certify medical necessity to the patients seeking this drug. After approval the patient can take his or her Marijuana Identification card to a dispensary and receive a limited amount of this drug. Knowing most of the prescribed drug is not going to be used for its medically intended purpose who will be held responsible when irrationality of its use enters the picture? Will physicians be held responsible when a vehicular crash occurs by someone with excess drug in their systems (presently blood level excess has not been set)? If a physician approves too many requests will his or her license be impaired?  And the list of unknowns goes on.

Maryland Legislature pays lip service to those whose minds and bodies have been crushed by the never ending supply of drugs consumed by its residents. Marijuana should never have been criminalized. With that stated drug sales should not be supported by state mandate either. Enter a busy emergency and watch as the bodies of drug victims roll in. Marijuana may not be nearly as toxic as opioids. When combined with alcohol or other deadly substances bad results are inevitable. Does this reporter have the answers, no I don’t. Nevertheless neither does the Maryland hierarchy. I hope and pray that I am wrong. Yet experience outside Maryland should have taught those in power something. Apparently it hasn’t.

Mark Davis MD

platomd@gmail.com

onandoffthehill.com

superbbookreviews.com

Maryland Board of Physicians from Bad to Worse

Maryland Board of Physicians: from Bad to Worse

Maryland Board of Physicians has touched many lives, unfortunately not in a positive manner. Coincident with several articles I wrote for the Baltimore Examiner, detailing the unscrupulous nature of this Board, the Maryland Legislature released a derogatory report against this entity in 2011. This report was entitled, Sunset Review: Evaluation of the State Board of Physicians and Related Health Advisory Committees. Embodied in its pages was supposed to be the framework from which the Board would improve its functions and effectuate processes that were honest and consistent with its written regulatory structure. Instead the Board went in another direction. In a series of deceptive reports to the Maryland Legislature over the years following the release of the Sunset Review the Board omitted its failures exemplifying a false front as stated in this article. Managed by lawyers, from the top down, due process has been cast into the fire as this Board cherry picks which laws it will follow.

Medical Boards have come under increasing scrutiny over the last decade. Both the Texas and Arizona Boards have assaulted physicians in merciless manners resulting in loss of licensure for hundreds of physicians who did nothing more than have an MD after their names. State Legislatures woke up and cleansed the slate of characters that managed these administrative entities. Maryland Board’s incessant misuse of standards of care to entrap physicians is a tragedy that needs correction too. In the author’s case the Maryland Board spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and an entire decade to rid the state of this physician over paper compliance issues. Time has come for the Maryland Legislature to investigate this corrupt entity and rid the Board of it’s over dependence on lawyers.

Maryland’s Legislature has taken a step back in its oversight of the Maryland Board of Physicians. Last time I looked physicians were also citizens of the state. Hence they deserved certain due process rights. Appearance of due process is not due process. The Board along with its attack dog the Attorney General’s Office have a routine they follow to keep physicians from their full rights. Through convoluted legalese physicians have had a rough time defending themselves in administrative hearings. The Board’s attorneys have developed strategies to keep physicians from presenting expert witnesses, exculpatory evidence and patient testimony. Case number DHMH SBP-71-07-05227 Mark Davis MD hearing before an administrative court exposes the outright suppression of a physician’s right to defend himself appropriately. The transcript should be read by any physician forced to participate in this Soviet style hearing before a state appointed judge.

With the failure of the Nikita Levy case, the failure to oversee excessive opioid prescribing and the misuse to standards of care to target certain physicians the Maryland Legislature should be compelled to take an independent review of the Board. This should be a review by people who are not friends or associates of the Board as the most recent review by its University connections. In a future article we will review why the Maryland Board of Physicians allowed Nikita Levy case to be hidden from view until it spilled over into the media.

Mark Davis MD

platomd@gmail.com

medicalboardusa.com

Maryland's compulsory drug proposals

 

Maryland’s compulsory drug proposals

 

Maryland’s legislature is exuberantly moving forward with proposals to force medications on unwilling patients. New laws under consideration are coercion tactics to medicate both inpatient and not hospitalized individuals who may be subject to psychological stress. How the judicial arm of Maryland government will interplay with these potential legislative efforts is yet to be determined.

 

National debate reached a crescendo concerning the mentally disabled amongst us after the massacre inside Sandy Hook Elementary School. Adam Lanza, mentally challenged for years, finally went berserk taking 27 lives then his own. Multiple psychiatric ailments were attributed to Lanza who received treatment for them intermittently from the time he was in elementary school. Adequacy of therapy was the central theme in the aftermath of this egregious event. Lanza could not be forced to take pharmaceuticals to control his behavior. With new laws under consideration that scenario may change.

 

Division in the medical community on forced medication protocols for those with the gamut of mental illnesses is significant. Many questions need to be answered to satisfy the hordes of practicing physicians who will be called upon to apply these therapies. Is informed consent necessary? Will the Maryland’s Attorney General Office be waiting with a noose if the doctor does not believe and or apply the therapies within the protocol? Maryland’s Board of Physicians: where do they stand on this issue?  Are physicians protected against malpractice suits when the patient objects to being drugged? Who writes the standards of care for this exploitation of the patient, lawyers or physicians? The list of questions is long and involved. Maryland Physicians are fully aware the legal community will benefit most from this State overreach into its citizens’ lives.

 

Proof that intensely medicating people will reduce levels of violent crimes has yet to evolve. Draconian measures under consideration are reminiscent of controls utilized in the most undemocratic of societies. Worse, in the event this egregious legislative effort is allowed to breathe, what next? School children who are not already taking psycho-tropics could be forced on to them or be expelled. Once this door is opened, bureaucrats may enforce these drugs on an array of people. Before legislation of forced medicating people is placed into effect studies need to be performed and or reviewed to justify this approach. Maryland’s legislature does not have the cerebral ability to either justify this move or the integrity to make it work for those who will potentially benefit most. Perhaps our legislators should take a tour of the State Constitution and its big brother in the federal domain before the few rights Marylanders have left move off into the sunset.

 

Mark Davis MD, President of Davis Book Reviews and Healthnets Review Services.

www.healthnetsreviewservices.com    platomd@gmail.com

Author of Demons of Democracy and his newest work, Obamacare: Dead on Arrival, A Prescription for Disaster.