THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS

When Willie Sutton, a notorious bank robber during the 1920s and 1930s, was asked why he robbed banks, he allegedly answered: "Because that’s where the money is." That was then and this is now. Today the money is in the illegal sales of drugs.
　
Back in the ‘60s when I was working drug cases, we found that a lot of lawyers and doctors were involved in the illegal sales of drugs. Lawyers were bankrolling large drug smuggling operations – marijuana and cocaine from Mexico to the U.S. Doctors were dispensing loads of pills to ‘patients’ addicted to amphetamines, barbituates and other prescription drugs.
　
I remember busting one doctor in Riverside, California. His medical building had one room filled with so many pills that it took three of us the better part of two days to count all of them.
　
In the ‘90s, two friends and I established a private investigation agency in Houston. Our lawyer was also a friend. He specialized in defending drug dealers. One time a dope dealer went to his office after he had been arrested and made bail. He wanted our lawyer to represent him. He was told that he would have to put up $20,000 as a detainer. He said that was no problem, left the office and returned within the hour, suitcase in hand. The suitcase contained $20,000 cash. The next day the dope dealer was shot to death. Our lawyer said it was the easiest $20,000 he ever made.
　
I warned our friend that he was asking for trouble defending only drug dealers, telling him how lawyers like him in California eventually got involved in the drug smuggling business. He shrugged me off. Sure enough, a couple of years later he got busted by the DEA and ended up spending several years in federal prison.
　
On Sunday, the Houston Chronicle had a feature story on Houston area doctors dealing prescription drugs illegally. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, those doctors have been dispensing (1) Hydrocodone, a narcotic sold under the brand name Vicodin, (2) Alprazolam, an anti-anxiety drug sold under the brand name Xanax, and (3) Carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant sold under the brand name Soma. Each drug is highly addictive.
　
According to DPS, one doctor wrote more than 43,000 prescriptions for highly addictive drugs over a 15 months period. That’s 3,000 prescriptions a month. He averaged 64 prescriptions a day for Hydrocodone and that was only one of the three drugs he was dispensing. Another doctor wrote24,328 prescriptions for Alprazolam during that period, an average of 1,600 prescriptions a month for that drug alone. A third doctor dispensed more than 3.5 million tablets of Vicodin, Xanax and Soma in one year.
　
The doctors operate out of ‘medical’ pain clinics where the top six doctors prescribing the three drugs wrote between 23,907 and 43,383 prescriptions each during the 15 months period. According to the Chronicle, at some of these clinics ‘patients’ can "often be seen lining up around the block as if waiting for tickets to a rock concert." The clinics can be extremely profitable, earning anywhere from $1 million to $3 million a year.
　
The pain clinics, usually located in a strip shopping center, operate on a cash-only basis, charging $60 to $100 a visit. According to the Chronicle, "many of the physicians recruited by such clinics are know as ‘twilight doctors,’ who may be at the end of their careers and like earning $10,000 to $20,000 a month in cash."
　
Doctors, who are dispensing drugs illegally, are every bit as dangerous as are the underworld dealers of heroin, cocaine and meth. Not only are they responsible for a substantial part of America’s illicit drug problem, but these doctors are also responsible for many thefts, burglaries and armed robberies that their ‘patients’ rely on to pay for those $60 to $100 cash-only visits. Even if these doctors are in their twilight years, they need to get busted and sentenced to long prison terms, with probation and parole not an option.