In the DEA’s fight against chronic pain treatment, patients are often the losers:

“Doctors are trained to treat patients, not to be detectives,” says Dr. James N. Campbell, a Johns Hopkins University neurosurgeon specializing in pain, who will be another witness for Dr. Hurwitz. He says that doctors have already reacted to the D.E.A. crackdown by changing the way they deal with the many Americans “” at least 50 million, by several estimates “” who suffer from chronic pain.

“Opioids were a revolution in pain treatment during the 1990s, but doctors are now more reluctant to use them,” Dr. Campbell says. “If a doctor perceives there’s a 1 in 5,000 chance that a prescription will lead to a D.E.A. inquiry “” just an inquiry, not even an arrest “” he’s not going to take the chance. So the victims are the patients.”