Drug testing Judges: the time has come

Drug testing Judges: the time has come

In 2010 a report noted that 1 in 5 Americans took at least one prescription pharmaceutical to treat a psychological condition such as depression or anxiety. This means that 20% of our population takes a medication which can alter mood, behavior and judgment. Drug testing has been imposed on numerous groups in our society by overreaching government bureaucrats whose need to know appears to outweigh our privacy rights. Students who participate in sports many times are under the gun to take a drug test. Worksites often have a drug test requirement. Pilots, military personnel and even we lowly physicians have been coerced into testing. Yet somehow the very people that create and enforce drugs laws have found a manner to maneuver around drug testing regulations. Judges who render critical decisions about our lives appear to have escaped the very sanction they impose on others. Judges collectively are drawn from the same pool of people the rest of come from. With 20% of the populations’ brains immersed in mind bending medications it stands to reason that at least 20% of judges are prescribed these medications. In Maryland this author has had numerous opportunities to appear before lower court judges. Many times these judges were conflictive, confrontational and on several occasions deprecating inexcusably out of proportion to the topic being discussed. A judge in the Howard County Circuit Court appeared to be mumbling to himself as he considered a case. Another judge in the Federal Court in Baltimore appeared to have difficulty focusing his mind on the case before him. Mind altering drugs can affect the neural machinery that enables the brain to arrive at a specific decision. Judges are not immune to these medications. With the important roles judges play in society petitioners coming before them must be assured their arbiters are of sound mind. Drug testing judges would provide assurances to the public that we don’t have an odd ball sitting behind the bench. Additionally, along with the yearly drug test, a brief psychological evaluation would provide the necessary information to keep the mentally disinclined off the bench. Maryland has not instituted any significant reviews of their judges in these respects and the public has a right to know if a member of the judiciary is psychologically impaired. Mark Davis MD, President of Healthnets Review Services, advisor to the media and others on health and related issues. platomd@gmail.com

Maryland Court of Special Appeals: Who do the judges serve

Maryland Court of Special Appeals: who do the judges serve

Colonial America had a deep distrust for the legal profession and the arbiters they served. Most worked for the British monarchy interspersed with a few homegrown sentinels of democracy. Once the king was given his walking papers through the Declaration of Independence, a new set of laws were required to engineer the evolving country. In order to make the Constitution palatable to the new Americans, the word lawyers or references to them were omitted. This great document allowed a person to appear before a court without requiring the services of an attorney to state his/her case. Two hundred twenty five years later America is being suffocated by a legal industry that brings the country closer to ruin. Courts were designed to bring balance and resolve to problems brought before them. Today’s court decisions are driven by factors other than the questions that initiated the cases. A lesson this former physician learned when he received a decision from the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. In case number 2587, September Term 2009, Judges Krauser, Wright and Salmon sent me a decision that they knew was contrary to present law, but more profound it was deceitful. The details would take several pages of boring verbiage, the bottom line is the Court went out of its way to uphold false charges that the Maryland Board of Physicians levied against me six years prior. A recent audit by the Maryland State Legislature of the Maryland Board of Physicians found that this entity acted outside Maryland Law and Mandate when prosecuting cases against physicians. The Court had to know they were substantiating fabrications against me, yet they sold their souls to a rogue administrative entity, the Maryland Board of Physicians, so it would not lose the case. The facts are now out, Judge Bell in the Court of Appeals refused to hear a Writ of Certiorari, further confirming that the Courts will lie to uphold decisions from state agencies that are completely false. To answer the premise who do the judges work for: themselves. The shame is once these irreverent overpaid judges are in place, it is very difficult to relieve them of the mischief they cause. The question is how many more physicians have been quietly screwed by  these black robed thugs. If you know of any, please contact me. Mark Davis, MD

President of Healthnets Review Services and author of Demons of Democracy, platomd@gmail.com