Multiple Sclerosis Sufferer Serving 25-Year Sentence for Taking Pain Killers

[marmar]

from HuffPost, via AlterNet:


Multiple Sclerosis Sufferer Serving 25-Year Sentence for Taking Pain Killers

By Maia Szalavitz, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted March 14, 2007.



Jailing Richard Paey for taking pain pills serves no one -- not taxpayers, not pain patients, and certainly not the image of America as a decent, humane country.

Florida's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Richard Paey, a wheelchair-using father of three who is currently serving a 25-year mandatory prison sentence for taking his own pain medication. In doing so, the court let stand a decision which essentially claims that the courts have no role in checking the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government when an individual outcome is patently unjust.

Richard Paey -- who suffers both multiple sclerosis and from the aftermath of a disastrous and barbaric back surgery that resulted in multiple major malpractice judgments -- now receives virtually twice as much morphine in prison than the equivalent in opioid medications for which he was convicted of forging prescriptions.

He had previously been given legitimate prescriptions for the same doses of pain medicine -- but made the mistake of moving to Florida from New Jersey, where he could not find a physician to treat his pain adequately. Each of his medical conditions alone can produce agony. Paey has described his pain as constantly feeling like his legs had been "dipped into a furnace."

The Ivy-league educated attorney has no prior criminal convictions, and weeks of surveillance by narcotics agents did not find him selling the medications. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/49191 /

[tsuki]

1. And yet the state of Florida gives Lushbaugh a free pass. n/t

[Wickerman]

2. Interesting, is he in the same prison as Noelle Bush?

ooops, that's right...

[Toots]

3. I'm sure Rush would want that bastard jailed for life...

Florida is one screwed up state and that is a fact...

[Jackpine Radical]

4. I will sleep better tonight knowing I'm protected from this drug-crazed

criminal.

Sadly, I see very little will in America to reform our draconian drug laws. We are victims of our own propaganda system, and two immensely powerful organizations, both of which have more money than God, are dependent on maintaining the status quo: The DEA/Prison system, and the drug cartels.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. me too.

boy, I am so proud of FLorida. And the drug agents that spent so much time spying on him. Now, that is a great use of resources. Hell, I'd bet that he probably was working in concert with the Liberty Seven and was thinking about smuggling shoes to them, now that he is wheelchair bound.

[ck4829]

5. ... Florida.

[LiberalFighter]

6. Knowing only what is in the article I believe strongly that the people in power in Florida

are a bunch of idiots. And excuse for offending anyone in Florida with reasonable judgement but the people in Florida must be morons to elect these idiots to the courts, the legislature and State House.

The Florida Supreme Court must be one of the laziest, inempt group in the state of Florida.

[fed-up]

7. the green leafy stuff works better for leg cramps/spasms than baclofin (sp?) for my sis w/MS nt

[mcscajun]

8. This is horrible. It's like Jean Valjean and the loaf of bread.

It's heartbreaking.

[rodeodance]

9. my god--when i see stuff like this---I just have so little hope!