Add Mark Kleiman and Matthew Yglesias to the list of leftist personalities who dismiss John Tierney’s painkiller series for reationary reasons.

The specific errors of Kleiman’s post are too numerous to mention. Regular readers of this site could by now probably go over and pick them out themselves. It’s pretty obvious that Kleiman hasn’t read enough about this issue to know what the hell he’s talking about.

Two of Kleiman’s specific charges are worth refuting:

First, Kleiman says Tierney implies in his column that DEA agents are cowards.

No, he doesn’t.

What Tierney does write is that DEA agents have targeted doctors because its easier to gather evidence against someone who pays taxes, fills out forms, keeps records, and is required by law to keep track of the prescriptions he writes. It’s much more difficult to build a case against a black market dope dealer.

Kleiman then dips off into loony conspiracy land, and implies Tierney wrote the column either (a) as a sop to Purdue Pharma, or, (b) in an effort to win a pardon for his pal Rush Limbaugh. Kleiman’s evidence for the latter is that — are you ready for this? — Tierney didn’t mention Limbaugh in either column. Of course!

Then again, if Tierney had mentioned Limbaugh, it’s a safe bet Kleiman would have used that as evidence that Tierney’s column was aimed at a pardon for Limbaugh, too.

The Purdue charge is patently ridiculous. Purdue is no ally of pain patients or their physicians. Yes, the company makes money off of OxyContin. But Purdue is so petrified of federal regulation and the possibility that the FDA or DEA will take Oxy off the market that the company gives copious funding to groups who promote anti-opioid hype, not those who try to alleviate it.

Purdue, for example, funded Joe Califano’s “study” of prescription drug “abuse” in this country, a study that produced results so hysterical and exaggerated, even the ONDCP wouldn’t touch them. Purdue also sponsors the NIDAA training coferences across the country, which teach drug cops how to surveil, monitor, investigate, and ultimately arrest, seize the assets from, and win convictions of doctors who allegedly divert prescription meds.

That’s Kleiman. As for Yglesias, his one-sentence critique of Tierney was so vague, I really don’t know how to respond. If he’d like to tell me what the real intent of federal opioid regulations are, I’d be happy to explain to him why that intent fails. I suspect Yglesias isn’t on board here because of his eternal love of the state and all federal power, consequences be damned.

Kleiman’s opposition seems to stem from his dislike for Tierney — a guy the lefty Powers That Be have deemed to be “on the other side.” That’s a pretty common sentiment among other lefty blog reactions to Tierney’s series, particularly in comments sections.

There was a time when you could count on the left to oppose a policy like this — one plagued by out-of-control cops and prosecutors, and a moralistic social policy that leads to innocent suffering and the jailing of innocents.

No more. Lust for federal power and petty political alliances seem to have trumped those pricinples completely.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 25th, 2005 at 1:26 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Pain Treatment, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.