Shocking life hack: animal cripple owners to get drug prescriptions
Some pet owners, desperately seeking to get another dose of drugs, mutilate their pets with their own hands to get narcotic drugs from veterinarians, American doctors warn doctors.
Recently, one of these cases has attracted international attention: a Kentucky resident used her husband's disposable razor blades to apply several deep cuts to her retriever Alice and get opioid painkillers from a veterinarian. USA Today.
“I remember my first feeling of disbelief - this can’t be real. I was shocked,” says Elizabethtown, Kentucky, police officer John Thomas, who investigated the case.
Scott Brinks, a spokesman for the US Drug Administration, at a conference in Louisville this month, warned more 200 veterinarians and doctors about the importance of paying attention to people trying to get narcotic drugs, since animals are also becoming victims of a drug epidemic among Americans.
One conference attendee asked if it was possible to search a database to see if a pet owner had received drugs from other veterinarians—a possible indicator of "medical shopping" to obtain more drugs. Doctors regularly perform this type of check when treating people.
Alice's owner, Heather Pereira of Elizabethtown, went on a "medical shopping spree" at an animal clinic in Louisville and then went to an animal hospital in her hometown to get tramadol, which is used to treat moderate to severe pain.
The cuts on the dog's body looked too clean and neat to be an accident. Drawing attention to this, the veterinarians called the police, not believing the hostess’s implausible stories about how the dog was injured. Moreover, Alice needed help for the third time in two months; the last wound required six to eight stitches to close two incisions in her right thigh. In the end, the hostess admitted that she was cutting her dog.
Kelly District Judge Mark Easton called Pereira's crime a "selfish act to feed her out-of-control drug habit" and sentenced the pet owner to four years behind bars for obtaining a controlled substance by false statement - a felony - and for animal abuse . She was released in 2016 after serving two years and remains on supervised probation.
Kentucky veterinarians are trained to identify signs of abuse.
“We know that people with drug problems will do almost anything to get them,” said Doug Peterson, president of the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association. “This, of course, is not something that a veterinarian sees at least once a month, but we need to take care of this issue.”
Along with deliberate injuries to domestic animals, some drug seekers may exaggerate or imitate the injuries of their pets.
“Due to concerns about drug abuse, some veterinarians will not prescribe controlled substances,” the expert says. “They simply won’t keep such substances in clinics.”
According to him, doctors sometimes do drugs directly to pets after surgery, but send them home with a less powerful pain killer.
Veterinarians plan to introduce a new practice: ask their new clients to sign documents that will allow to study the medical history of the animal. If the pet owner refuses to sign such paper, the veterinarian has the right to refuse treatment.
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