– Individuals in some rural parts of Washington are having difficulty finding doctors willing to certify patients and write prescriptions for the new Death With Dignity law. This was somewhat expected as there was never any intention to force doctors to participate, but if a person is forced to travel across the state to exercise what should now be a basic right, the law really isn’t working. I’m still confident that doctors in those areas will begin to step up and start working with the individuals who are seeking out this option without requiring the state to get involved (a la Plan B). Thursday is National Healthcare Decisions Day, and Compassion and Choices is using this opportunity to encourage health care providers to honor people’s end-of-life decisions.
– The Cannabis Defense Coalition is following a case involving two medical marijuana patients in Mason County. Prosecutors are claiming that the couple (John Reed, 48, and Karen Mower, 44) had more marijuana than they were authorized by a doctor to have. I don’t have a lot of information about the case other than what’s in the sheriff’s office’s press release (which appears to overestimate how much pot a single plant can produce). Some observers will be in the courtroom in Shelton this Friday.
– This Friday is the opening night for American Violet, a movie that chronicles the true story of an African-American single mother who was falsely arrested on drug charges and was able to fight the very corrupt justice system in her rural Texas town. Unfortunately, the movie is only being released in some markets, so we’ll have to wait to see it here in Seattle. If this review from Rex Reed is any indication, we’ll get a chance to see it before too long:
It’s rare, I’ll admit, but occasionally a good movie raises its head through the muck and mire and leaves me grateful but shocked with disbelief. Such a movie is American Violet, a harrowing, compelling and profoundly true story that dares to tackle an important but too rarely exposed issue of the abuse of power in the American criminal justice system.
…
At a time when almost every movie I see is about nothing at all, American Violet rattles a few cages with its story of personal courage against overwhelming odds. Sensational, nerve-racking stuff that leaves you shattered while it teaches you something.
The movie is based upon a real life drug task force sweep in Hearne, Texas. In the review, Reed seems stunned that what he was watching in the film is a true story. I’m not sure the average American is aware of the extent of corruption that happened in towns like Hearne and Tulia (which also has a movie in the works with Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry). As I was reading the book that the upcoming Tulia movie will be based on, I remember thinking how the story would shock people as a Hollywood movie.
[Via Drug WarRant]
Lee — you are helping to prove the arguments made by those opposed to Plan B.
Honestly, I cannot understand why a pharmacist should be able to refuse to dispense contraceptives, simply because of their personal moral views.
On the other hand, I have an extreme problem with forcing a physician to write a prescription for lethal drugs when a patient wishes to terminate their own life. This should be as much of an issue for the conscience of the physician as for the conscience of the patient.
There certainly ARE doctors who supported I-1000. Of the 13,544 named contributions (which include individuals as well as organizations), 82 of these were made by persons listing “Physician” as their occupation. This is roughly the same percentage of physician contributors, as the percentage of physicians in the general population.
On the other hand, 81 of these 82 physicians either live in the Puget Sound area or in some other state. Only one physician contributor was from the state of Washington outside Puget Sound, and that contributor happened to be from Winthrop in remote Okanogan County in eastern Washington.
If someone happens to live in an area where no physicians wish to assist in termination of their life, then they should visit a doctor in the Seattle area who is willing to assist. If the person finds it difficult to travel, then perhaps one of the dozens of Seattle doctors who contributed to I-1000 should contribute a little of their time to paying an old-fashioned “house call”.
The alleged plight of people living in eastern Washington (at least those who no longer wish to be living at all) is no different than people who live in Idaho, Utah or any of the other states that are unlikely to ever adopt an assisted-suicide law.
Public Notice
Roger Rabbit will be gone on a business trip for a few days. It’s spring planting time and I need to fertilize some vegetable gardens in the red counties to make sure the veggies grow up big and strong! In other words, I’m gonna shit in some Republicans’ backyards. That’s what rabbits do, you know.
Disappointing turnout for the Great Lobbyist Uprising of 2009 yesterday. It’s hard to believe that a handful of professional malcontents and useful idiots getting together to protest against… something they couldn’t quite pin down (was it taxes? spending? Obama? abortion? teh gay? immigration? Just to be on the safe side, they complained about them all)… wouldn’t garner more support just a few months after they were drubbed in yet another election.
Yep, it’s a mystery.
It’s Texas. What more do you need to say?
Here is one of Goldy’s ilk…trying to disrupt free speech:
http://www.zeropaid.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=53508
What a KLOWN!
Lee ..
The response of Washington doctors is exactly the same as it has been in Oregon.
Part of the problem is that the law misuses the definition of depression. Depression is not a very easy diagnosis. If your primary physician feels that you are clinically depressed, she can not ethically provide you with the scrip.
The result, as has happened in Oregon, will be that a cadre of physicians will specialize in writing these scrips. The ethical issues for these docs are worrisome. Few consultants are willing to diagnose clinical depression and none should do so without a fairly extensive knowledge of the patient. The ethical issues are very similar to the issues in late term abortion where the physician community has developed good standards to differentiate between a woman who wants an abortion because she had a fight with her partner and the woman who has a real health need to terminate a viable baby.
As a proponent of the law, In would hope to see you take an active role in seeing that we do a better job in Washington than has been done in Oregon. If you had attended the public session at UW you would have heard about other real world issues the legislation did not address … real issues for pathologists who are being told to replace their scientific criteria with a legislated cause of death, concerns about how the law affects the far bigger population of patients who need help with terminal pain, and other issues I raised before.
Now that we have this law, I hope thughtful advocates will work to achieve better support for patients in Washington than has happened in Oregon.
The real challenge for the bills supporters now ought to be to work with physicians to write a better law that is more consistent with medical ethics, science and patient needs.
Texas
SJ suggestion: President Obama should call on ex President Chaney and Bush, as Texans, to take a loyalty oath to the Union.
I thought Cheney hailed from Wyoming??
@1
Honestly, I cannot understand why a pharmacist should be able to refuse to dispense contraceptives, simply because of their personal moral views.
On the other hand, I have an extreme problem with forcing a physician to write a prescription for lethal drugs when a patient wishes to terminate their own life. This should be as much of an issue for the conscience of the physician as for the conscience of the patient.
Why? What’s the difference? In both cases, the physician is participating in the ending of a life. In the case of Plan B, the life is obviously very basic and has no awareness. But in the case of Death with Dignity, the possessor of that life is making the decision. I don’t understand why there’s a big distinction for an individual’s conscience one way or the other to be a part of it.
Also, state involvement does not necessarily have to be identical to Plan B in that doctors would have to participate. It could be that the state could find willing doctors who would travel to rural parts of the state regularly to meet with patients in that area.
If someone happens to live in an area where no physicians wish to assist in termination of their life, then they should visit a doctor in the Seattle area who is willing to assist. If the person finds it difficult to travel, then perhaps one of the dozens of Seattle doctors who contributed to I-1000 should contribute a little of their time to paying an old-fashioned “house call”.
Absolutely. All I’m saying is that the state may have to take it upon themselves to make that happen.
@1
The alleged plight of people living in eastern Washington (at least those who no longer wish to be living at all) is no different than people who live in Idaho, Utah or any of the other states that are unlikely to ever adopt an assisted-suicide law.
Yes, and what’s happening now is that the prescription is becoming more and more available over the internet, so that the doctors who think they’re being “conscientious” by refusing to participate in the law (and the states that refuse to enact laws like this) are making sure that this remains an unregulated arena in medical care. We need to get over our irrational fear of this choice and start protecting people.
Abortion is legal. A doctor cannot be forced to perform an abortion on demand of his patient.
Death with Dignity is legal. A doctor cannot be forced to help with ending someone’s life.
“but if a person is forced to travel across the state to exercise what should now be a basic right, the law really isn’t working.”
What’s so hard about this?
These procedures are legal, nowhere do they state that they should be convenient.
@11
The difference is that some of the people who desire to use the Death with Dignity law have more difficulty traveling long distances than pregnant women do.
@12 Hey Lee
Congrats by the way.
I understand that some will have trouble traveling. I fall back to the “just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it convienient” argument. We all have to live with the choices we make in out lives. Living rural, or in a place with limited healthcare options is a choice.
Gotta run. Good stuff Lee.
@13
Living rural, or in a place with limited healthcare options is a choice.
I guess it boils down to whether one feels that access to health care is a right or a privilege. I believe that access to health care should be a right for all people. If one does not buy that premise, then what you’re saying is true.
And thanks for the well-wishes. I’m really enjoying being a dad. :)
Still Country Clubbing (with) Steve edition …
**
If this is another of Don Joe’s feeble attempts at irony, it’s too inscrutably cruel to be ironic. I mean, how could he teach me anything after he drop kicked me out of remedial con law and preremedial (premedial) torts? I mean, what’s a little Ipecac between friends? In your merlot? Or a lot of Dulcolax in your Chardonnay? You are tragically humor impaired, DJ, and you’re so mean you must be a closeted Republican.
(Questions: Do ‘drop kicked’ and ‘humor impaired’ need hyphens? Is one of us — the Ipecacer or the mean-spirited Ipecacee — a tortfeasor?)
** Meanwhile, back at the Bar: Everyone knows that the United States is in terminal decline because we breed too many lawyers and not enough engineers. The Japanese, despite being inscrutable, have their priorities straight and their lawyers properly suppressed. Alas, no. Joel Best, in his excellent little book, Damned Lies and Statistics, shows that everyone is wrong. Japan, like us, breeds entirely too many lawyers, but fewer than two percent of Japan’s law grads pass the bengoshi exam that lets them become free-lance practitioners. The others are comparitively uncounted drudges and drones working as legal servants indentured to big corporations and big government. Japan, in other words, is fucked like us.
** Nisqually Glacier just keeps growing, which is further evidence of global warming. Well, no. Robert Felix is at least as persuasive about impending catastrophic global cooling as Gore and Moore are about their catastrophes du jour.
** Actual Tax Facts: MIT’s Taxing Ourselves, 4th edition, is written by two Goldycrats who laugh at Laffer and Reagan, and who can surely be counted on to prop Goldstein’s income-tax mania. Sort of … except that their discussion of the federal income tax raises flags for doing one here.
At the fed level, the costs of compliance and preparation, as of 20 years ago and with many fewer forms and pages of code, were almost $100 billion/year. Our best guess for the cost of income-tax evasion is over $300 billion/year, with only a small fraction recoverable. The primary problem with the income tax is that “income” defies definition, or defies definitions easy enough for tax “experts” to understand.
As for the surge, the sudden alleged popularity of the income tax, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center has the key. Their chart, reproduced on page 83 of Taxing Ourselves, shows that the lower quintiles of taxpayers are not payers; they are gainers. The lowest quintile is taxed at -7.6%, thanks mostly to Reagan and the Gingrichs who stole Christmas.
One More Thing: Rush, two or three weeks ago, referred again and again to the “Conscious Clause” that’s under attack from Obama.
@15: The Daily Klake spews: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Lee, moderation in the defense of liberty is no virtue. That’s what Barry Goldwater told us in 1964. Moderate your own illiberal indefensible comments and leave ours alone.
@8: Big Swingin’ Dick Cheney, from East Gunrack, Wyoming, is indeed my homey. He checked out Texas only for comic relief, and he regrets his youthful indiscretion.
Shouldn’t you be doing something useful? Like doing bong hits on medicinal marjoram or stalking Piper?
Moderate your own damned illiberal indefensible irrational comments, and leave our damned illiberal indefensible irrational comments alone.
Hmmmmm … here it is, all in one place: Lee, mercy killing, death with or without dignity. Perhaps there’s a good argument to be made, after all.
@14 Lee
What makes you think some farmworker’s daughter has it easier finding an abortion clinic than some well to do middle calss person who wants to commit suicide rather than dieing of end stage heart failure?
I strongly agree that the real issue is healthcare. I opposed I-1000 were that it has not helped with healthcare in Oregon and could not do so here either. This law does nothing at all to help in the great majority of cases because the law does not address the needs of the huge numbers of people with terrible non terminal illnesses. The law is also impossible to use for many cancer patients because modern therapy permits prolongation of life as an a option along with palliation and cure.
Let me give you a very real example. I hear great news that a a drug I have been interested in is likely t extend Mr. Kennedy’s life for 6 or even 12 months. Of course this is likely to cost 100k or more dollars and is currenlty experimental. Because we have I-1000 here, I doubt any physician would push hard to purchase another six months for a poor person. The incentive AGAINST spending that money under I-1000 is an issue that would not be raised if we had passed a law that made more sense.
So, you pushed hard for this bill and obviously care. NOW, the pedal meets the metal. I suggest again that the best thing the proponents can do is work WITH the medical community to make this legal option as available and as fair as possible to most people.
Lee, the stalker, being stalked again by Lee’s stalker, Stalker SJ. Gimme dramamine, quick.
Wild Asparagus …
I am not stalking anyone, I am trying to elevate the discussion so that the law works. FWIW,
I do feel deeply about patients and am very concerned by ANY legislation that hurts medical care. That si one reason I also, I assume along with Lee, strongly support Obama’s healthcare proposal.
So, it seems reasonable to me that anyone on either side of the I 1000 issue who does care about patients, as opposed to political posturing, would want to follow through.
I have attended a couple of meetings and listened to the very sincere efforts of the medical community to make this work. There have been some vocal opponents there who certainly are not interested in making it work but the meetings I have attended were very constructive. They made me proud of my collagues.
FWIW here are some of the issues that have been discussed:
How to fill in cause of death forms … the idea that anyone can legislate the content of this scientific document is a major issue since science uses this data. There are also some concerns with the law preventing criminal investigations.
What are the costs of compliance? I-1000, as written, created an unfunded mandate because it creates new legal requirements. Someone is gouin g to need to pay for these costs.
How to offer this option without conflicting with ethical standards? Contrary to much of the discussion among I-1000 advocates, ethics are a very real issue for most doctors and the law creates numerous ethical issues beyond the sim0le question of a right tom choose death. For example, the law requires the prescribing physician to determine that the patient is nto motivated by clinical depression. It is not easy for a urological surgeon to decide whether mr. J wants the cocktail because he is depressed about having metastatic prostate cancer.
How to assure that patients have the option when their own physician refuses to prescribe the cocktail? No one feels good about the practice in oregon of a few doctors signing scrips for patients they really do not know.
How to comply with conflicts between this law and the usual obligations physicians have to next of kin? Traditionally a decision like this si made with consent of nearest of kin. This law can block that.
How to assure that patients are not forced into this decision to save money for their kids.
Finally, a forensic pharmacologist and anesthetists at the meeting expressed concern with the mechanism of death using this coktail. The law allows or may require the patient to self administer the cocktail but the anaesthesiologist expressed concern that patients might actually suffer badly if the cocktail were not taken properly.
Is it stalking to suggest that activists contribute to the effort to make their own law work?