Prisoner of pain becomes martyr in Drug War
Richard Paely, a paraplegic and sufferer of chronic pain is behind bars for possession of pain killers that were prescribed to him. What a world.
The larger issue, of course, is why a man who is clearly not an addict (he wasn’t taking the medication to get high) and had a legitimate use for the medication wasn’t given access to what he needed in the first place. State prosecutors concede there’s no evidence Paey ever sold or gave his medication away. Nevertheless, under draconian drug war statutes, they were permitted to pursue distribution charges against him solely based on the amount of the medication in his possession (the unauthorized possession of as few as 60 tablets of some pain medications can qualify one as a “drug trafficker”).
Lock up a few more cripples and we might finally be safe from the scourge of drugs.