[Fwd: FW: Doctor Guilty In Oxycontin Case]

From: dtouch (dtouch@bellsouth.net)
Mon Feb 4 17:47:03 2002


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For everyone who depends on oxycontin this is the sort of thing that is happening. The dea plants all kind of people as patients and when you as legitimate chronic pain user get nothing. Keep writing to your officials and make them know chronic pain must be treated

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------ Forwarded Message From: Frank B. Fisher, M.D. <frankbfisher@earthlink.net> Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 08:28:26 -0800 To: Pain + Chemical Dependency <PAIN_CHEM_DEP@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM> Subject: Doctor Guilty In Oxycontin Case

January 31, 2002 DOCTOR GUILTY IN OXYCONTIN CASE PIKEVILLE, Ky.  -- A federal jury late last night convicted a Harlan County doctor accused of overprescribing OxyContin and other painkillers. Ali Sawaf, 60, a urologist who has practiced in Harlan since 1998, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine after being found guilty of prescribing the drugs without a legitimate medical purpose from January 2000 to February 2001.  Sentencing has not been scheduled yet. Sawaf was charged with 11 federal counts of knowingly and intentionally distributing a controlled substance.  He was also charged with three counts of illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. He was found guilty of eight of the 11 drug-related charges and was found innocent of all three of the weapons-related charges. Closing arguments yesterday pitted the prosecution's view of Sawaf as a money-hungry doctor who freely dispensed addictive drugs without physical examinations against the defense's view of Sawaf as a compassionate doctor who sought to help people in pain. Jurors began deliberations about 3 p.m.  and reached the verdict shortly after 10 last night.  They are scheduled to reconvene this morning to consider one additional count dealing with the seizure of profits from drugs. Assistant U.S.  Attorney Roger West said the case began with concern expressed by pharmacists who were so inundated with Sawaf's prescriptions for OxyContin that they stopped filling them. West reviewed the testimony of six pharmacists in and around Harlan County who said they saw an increase in the number of OxyContin prescriptions written after Sawaf began practicing in the area. In contrast, defense attorney Russell Alred depicted his client as a caring physician who merely helped patients in pain. OxyContin, a highly addictive painkiller originally intended for cancer patients in severe pain, has been linked to at least 70 overdose deaths in Eastern Kentucky.  Abusers crush and either snort or inject the drug to bypass a timerelease mechanism. Pharmacists in Harlan testified they stopped filling Sawaf's prescriptions because of the inordinately large amount of narcotics given to patients. Sawaf, an Iraqi national who became an American citizen in 1976, was charged with felony tax evasion in Michigan and is currently paying $114,000 in back taxes.  It is illegal for a felon to possess firearms and ammunition. 

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