DEA Revises Rule on Prescribing Painkillers

DEA Revises Rule on Prescribing Painkillers
Doctors Freed to Write Multiple Prescriptions

By Marc Kaufman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, September 7, 2006; Page A04

The Drug Enforcement Administration yesterday overturned a two-year-old policy that many pain specialists said was limiting their ability to properly treat chronically ill patients in need of powerful, morphine-based painkillers.

While defending its efforts to aggressively investigate doctors who officials conclude are writing painkiller prescriptions for no "legitimate medical purpose," the agency agreed with the protesting experts that it had gone too far in limiting how doctors prescribe the widely used medications.

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