Pain Relief Network » Main Page

Pain Relief Network » Main Page

Welcome to PRN

Pain Relief Network was founded in 2002 in response to the Bush Administration's crackdown on pain treating physicians. The Department of Justice launched its "Oxycontin Action Plan" in response to a DEA press campaign that asserted that Purdue Pharmaceuticals had unleashed an "epidemic" of drug abuse across the country, particularly in rural Appalachia (See The DEA’s OxyContin Action Plan: An Unproven Drug Epidemic).

Much like previous drug panics (See Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America), the Federal Government sought to frighten the public. Because this drug panic coincided with the launching of the Bush Administration's war in the Middle East, the campaign was highly successful.

Doctors who treated chronic or intractable pain with opioid pain medications were literally rounded up and put on trial, the government demanding that they serve decades, sometimes hundreds of years in prison. Medical professionals not yet targeted, responded by fleeing the discipline of pain management in droves.

Clinics across America became tertiary medical facilities of the federal apparatus, essentially operating at the whim of DEA.

Behind the scenes, and sometimes out front, PRN represents the solitary organized response to this onslaught.