Moving away from Cory Maye for just a moment….

Regular readers of this site are by now familiar with the plight of Richard Paey, a paraplegic who was sentenced to 25 years in a Florida prison. His crime was to procure prescription painkillers to alleviate the agony he was in from a car accident, a botched back surgery, and his multiple sclerosis. Prosecutors conceded that Paey never attempted to sell or distribute the drugs. They were for his own use. Paey was in need of high-dose opioid therapy. Thanks to draconian Florida drug laws and hysteria over OxyContin, Paey found it impossible to get the relief he needed at the doses he needed.

I’ve written about Paey here. The New York TImes’ John Tierney wrote about him here. And Reason’s Jacob Sullum wrote about him here. 60 Minutes’ Morley Safer interviewed Paey about a month ago for a yet-to-be-aired segment covering his story. Richard’s wife also addressed the Cato Institute at a forum we put on a few months ago. Read a transcript of her speech here.

A few weeks ago, I got a sweet and heartbreaking card from Richard. It came with a an elaborately detailed drawing of a bird escaping from iron chains, emblazoned with the words “In Faith All Things Are Possible.” Paey has taken up drawing in prison. Which I suppose is good, given that a parpalegic in prison can’t do much else.

If you’re looking to do something nice for someone this holiday season, I’d like to encourage you to drop Richard a line (you might drop Jeb Bush a line about Richard Paey while you’re at it). It probably make for a nice holiday pick-me-up for the guy to know that there are people outside those walls who support him.

Details on how to write to Richard are here. Be sure you follow the prison guidelines, found here.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 12th, 2005 at 8:06 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Pain Treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.