Greg Stumbo wrote an article published in your paper bragging about his hand in taking away the licenses of 11 Kentucky physicians. He states that this will diminish the Eastern Kentucky drug problem. Another politician “taking care” of the citizens of Kentucky, just like President Obama protecting us by closing down our coal mines in the name of “fictitious” global warming invented by Al Gore. Is your air dirty and unbreathable? I don’t think so.

My father was a Kentucky physician hit by the first wave of these do-gooders over 10 years ago. Unlike many of the pain doctors of today, he didn’t price gouge his patients but took care of an important need in the commonwealth for a reasonable fee. Unlike a coal miner or other worker, he cannot just pick up and go to another state to work because medical boards have “agreements” among themselves that prevent a person who had his license taken away from them to get a license in another state. The end consequence is that physicians like my father who is a good, decent man as well as the best doctor I have ever known, is deprived of the work he loves and working long hours for over nine years it obtain. What happened to our God given right to pursue happiness which includes the right to pursue employment? The “state” has deprived him the right to support his family and himself.

Let’s look at some of the facts. Ten percent of the population has addiction problems. Due to many hazardous jobs, some in coal, many are not, we have a significant population in the commonwealth with legitimate pain problems. I am one of them. Because of the actions of the politicians like Mr. Stumbo, access to care for pain patients is greatly limited. Those who choose to go outside the law to obtain their medication have no problem getting it, especially if they are willing to sell part of it at greatly inflated prices as they now are in Kentucky. In fact, I have talked to a number of people in many states and none of them have “street pills” selling anywhere near the prices as Kentucky. Interestingly, those states also don’t have the drug problems as Kentucky is purported to have. Ask yourself what causes it, the doctors or the politicians? It is time for the insanity to stop. In the climate created in Kentucky, no doctor in his right mind would practice here. Those that do don’t have the patient’s interest at heart, but rather they practice protect-myself-first medicine.

I am not even going to go into friends and acquaintances that have lost their lives because of the actions of politicians but are called (drug overdoses). No doctor goes through the work and sacrifice it takes only to waste it by breaking the law, at least not intentionally. They have to pass grueling tests to get a medical license in the first place. They then compete in the marketplace for patients. They then are set up for possible malpractice lawsuits that patients can file for any reason, legitimate or not. Think about it, would you go through this? Stop letting politicians like Stumbo attack our doctors and run them out of our state.

Jared James

Hazard, KY