PHOTO: (click on photo to enlarge) close-up enlargement scanned color image at 600 dpi of a prescription for a controlled substance pain medication that under Oregon law is not allowed to be sent electronically to the pharmacy and must be submitted in writing, printed on a special paper to prevent copying with the DocuGard 04541 Security Features technology. On most of the photo copy machines I tried, the words VOID showed up on the copy because of the micro-printed blue background seen on the prescription paper above is finer than the copy resolution of a typical copier. However, the prescription was successfully copied using a 600 dpi scanner copier and then printed with an actual (not just a selected setting) 1200 dpi print resolution, which is not available on amy home printers.
PHOTO: The back side of my prescription listed the DocuGard 04541 Security Features, such as it Prints VOID on front when duplicated; Blue background highlights erasure alterations; Watermark can be seen on back; Coin-reactive ink on watermark changes color when scratched; and Microtext border contains the DocuGard name and is difficult to copy. Under Oregon Law, doctors must print subscriptions on this paper and then sign it before submitting it to the pharmacy in writing inorder to prevent unauthorized use of a controlled substance. Oregon pharmacy regulators also allow the doctor to directly fax the prescription to the pharmacy, presumably because the fax phone call is traceable to a known source -- I say "presumably" because caller ID spoofing has become very common given today's deregulated phone IP phone systems.
Until this last month, I have been fortunate never to have had pain so bad to require a prescription-strength controlled substance pain medication.
I had heard before from doctors and cops about the problems with controlled substance drugs being addictive and often abused by people who become so addicted to the drugs that they are willing to do anything, such as illegally copy a prescription, in order to obtain more of the drug. Also, criminals can profit from copies of these prescriptions by selling them on the black market to drug addicts.
Therefore, I wasn't totally surprised, but I was still shocked when I tried to go to a medical facility that I have been going to for nearly 40 years, and they refused to help me with my stroke-related pain, despite it having been documented by these facilities years ago. Even after making me wait a week to see another doctor, I still was refused any pain medication for no logical reason.
It took a month to see a doctor that I have been seeing for over 20 years, and only then, after a month of trying other things he prescribed, would any doctor prescribe me a controlled substance pain medication!
I have never taken illegal drugs and I have never been a drug addict, so I was shocked by how hard it was to get some relief for my acute pain that was directly related to a documented stroke, which all of the doctors I saw knew about and did not question because it was documented in my hospital records.
I had heard before from other patients about how hard it was to get pain medication, but I had never experienced the difficulty firsthand -- I now realize how drug laws are so tough today that they make it hard for patients with legitimate needs to get these drugs because they are routinely denied help from nervous medical providers who worry about violating the law and harming patients.
Ironically, by the time I was able to fill this pain medication, the area of my brain's vision area that died. which then caused swelling and acute muscle pain due to subsequent contractures, had healed itself enough to a point where I no longer had an acute need for pain medication, but I went ahead and filled the prescription so that I could access it in the future for an emergency -- I hated to fill it because I now have to worry about a thief breaking in my house's locked safe box and also the drug might go bad before I use it, but I took these risks because I can't expect to go to the immediate care center and get any immediate help for this in the future!
If I get the energy in the future, I want learn more about the micro-printing methods used by the DocuGard technology and how it relates to the advanced printer research at Hewlett-Packard and other companies. I believe that instead of using this technology or faxing of controlled substances prescriptions, a better and more secure digital internet cloud technology needs to be invented to solve the problem of drug control. Venture capitalists would love to fund such a company.
