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Va. (WDBJ) – In 1999, more than 3,400 Americans died from prescription opioid overdoses. By 2017, when the federal government declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency, that number had ballooned to more than 17,000—a nearly 500 percent increase
In response, the federal government cracked down. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released strict new prescribing guidelines in 2016, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) placed prescribing doctors under intense scrutiny—raiding clinics and arresting physicians
While these efforts have made opioids harder to obtain and contributed to a decline in overdose deaths, they have also created an agonizing collateral consequence: millions of Americans with legitimate chronic pain conditions can no longer access the medication they need to survive
For Jim Elliott, the human cost of this federal crackdown is deeply personal. In 1991, his brother Danny was electrocuted by a malfunctioning water pump. Though he survived, the severe electrical current left him with permanent, debilitating nerve damage. On a daily basis, Danny lived with a baseline pain level of 5 out of 10, which frequently spiked to agonizing levels
“He said it felt like his brain was sloshing around in his head,” Jim Elliott said from his Warner Robins, Georgia. home. “He said his eyes felt like they were burning.”
When assessing a patient’s vital signs, doctors ask them to rate their pain from zero to ten, zero being pain free and ten being unbearable. According to Jim, Danny was at a five most days, and the pain would escalate to a ten on the bad days, when he would cancel plans and stay in bed
To cope, doctors prescribed Danny opioid medications for the everyday pain, along with high-strength fentanyl lozenges—typically reserved for late-stage cancer patients—for his worst days
“I learned through my brother that there’s a difference in addiction and dependence,” Jim Elliott said. “He was very dependent on pain medication. He was not addicted to it.”
In 2018, Danny’s life was upended. The DEA raided the office of his physician, Dr. Thomas Sachy, in Gray, Georgia, accusing him of operating a “pill mill.” The DEA took this step, in part, because two of Dr. Sachy’s patients had died from a prescription opioid overdose. However, Dr. Sachy maintained his innocence, and the government was never able to prove the allegations in court. Even so, a plea deal led Dr. Sachy to surrender his medical license
Suddenly, and with no notice, Danny lost his doctor and his medication. Over the next few years, the scenario repeated itself twice more with physicians in Texas and California
In 2022, the DEA raided the office of Dr. David Bockoff in Beverly Hills. Danny had begun seeing Dr. Bockoff after another doctor in Houston had been raided. Jim points out that if Danny was an addict, he could have easily gotten his fix in Georgia, where he lived with his wife Gretchen. Instead he traveled to Los Angeles to find a doctor who would do things legally
“You can go [90 minutes to two hours northwest] to Atlanta and get that,” Jim said. “You can go to even smaller places in Georgia and get that.”
“The thing that makes me the most angry is the abruptness with which that happened to my brother,” Jim Elliott recalled. “Your medications run out Thursday and bam. That’s it.”
Shortly after losing his third doctor to a DEA raid, Danny sent his brother Jim a suicide noteelief had simply become too much to bear
“I opened my email, and yeah it was pretty devastating,” Jim said. He called Warner Robins Police for a welfare check to try and stop what he knew had likely already happened
Police discovered Danny and his wife Gretchen dead in their home. Both had died by suicide
“He lost hope,” Jim said. “He gave up.”
Danny’s story is not an isolated incident. Across the country, advocacy groups like the Doctor-Patient Forum are tracking thousands of pain patients who say they have been abandoned by the medical system
Claudia Merandi founded the Doctor-Patient Forum in 2017 after experiencing severe pain from Crohn’s Disease in an emergency room, where she says she was humiliated and accused of “drug-seeking.”
“I went home humiliated, and I had to come back later, and now I have a colostomy bag,” Merandi told WDBJ7
“You see your doctor every few months. And you get drug tested. And maybe the doctor wants you to do these pill counts. So you monitor the patient,” Merandi explained, advocating for a balanced approach. “Safe prescribing is how we go about this. But not prescribing is not the solution.”
Merandi argues that federal pressure has terrified medical professionals. Doctors are increasingly refusing to treat chronic pain patients with opioids not because of medical reasons, but out of fear of losing their livelihoods or facing prison time
“Ripping these people off of their pain medication was simply done because of fear from the DEA,” Merandi said. “Doctors call me and they’ll say, ‘No, I’m done. I’m afraid. I don’t want to go to prison.’”
Rick Mountcastle, the former federal prosecutor who led the landmark government case against Purdue Pharma—the manufacturer of OxyContin—has a different view of the enforcement landscape. Purdue Pharma formally dissolved on May 1, 2026, marking a pivotal moment in a long legal battle
Mountcastle, who witnessed the devastation of the opioid crisis firsthand in Southwest Virginia, acknowledges the tragedy of abandoned pain patients but defends the government’s legal actions
“It’s a tragedy that someone who legitimately needs pain medicine has trouble getting it,” Mountcastle said. “People with legitimate chronic diseases, yes, they should be getting opioids.”
However, Mountcastle disputes the idea that law enforcement is making medical decisions. He explained that before the DEA raids a practice, investigators must obtain medical recordsexpert witnesses retained by the government, and the raids and prosecutions happen because a fellow doctor has reviewed the prescribing practices and found concerning issues
“That’s a nice narrative, I guess, to say, ‘Oh, doctors should be prescribing, cops and lawyers should not be making those decisions,’” Mountcastle said. “Well, we’re not making those decisions, and we never will because of the way the law is written.”
Mountcastle also strongly rejects the claim that patients taking opioids exactly as prescribed cannot become addicted
“That’s a lie,” Mountcastle said. “I’ve talked to many people who took it as directed, and for Oxycontin it only takes two or three days, taking the pill twice a day to become addicted to it.”
“What [Merandi] put out is the pharmaceutical industry’s propaganda. That’s how they sold it. And that’s a bald-faced lie,” Mountcastle said, adding that pharmaceutical executives should face prison time for their role in fueling the crisis
While the debate continues, chronic pain patients remain stuck in the middle. For patients forced off their regimens, tapering off the drugs helps prevent opioid withdrawal symptoms, but it does nothing for the chronic pain
“You have all these pain grifters telling people with painful diseases, ‘All you need to do is, here, download this app and meditate your pain away,’” Merandi said with a sarcastic laugh. “I’ve got to laugh. I’m going to put my trust in a doctor who says something as silly as that?”
“If you take high blood pressure medication, your high blood pressure doesn’t diminish because you stop taking your medication,” Merandi noted. “You’ve just created another horrible situation.”
For Danny Elliott, the national conversation around balanced prescribing has come too late. His death is not counted in federal opioid overdose statistics, but his family says his loss is directly tied to the crisis
Jim Elliott continues to speak out, hoping to protect the next patient from a similar fate
“At this point this is all I can do for him.” Jim said
The debate now lands on the desk of federal policymakers. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—himself a recovering heroin addict—has heavily advocated for “rural healing farms,” where individuals recovering from addiction can live, work, and recover together
While such initiatives aim to address the treatment side of illicit drug use, advocates point out they offer no relief for the millions of law-abiding chronic pain patients who still suffer every day
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. You can call or text 988 or chat at988lifeline.orgto reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
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