Testing may not be enough, as the TV show “House” demonstrates
Public Policy Recommendation:
Rehab may not be enough. Addicts can easily hide their drugs and enablers all-too-often protect their perceived right to use. Random and regular testing should be required for a period of time after an arrest as a condition of freedom or the right to work in fields where an addict poses a danger to others.
The latest episode of “House”is a wonderful and graphic portrayal of the need for addicts to be tested. They are great liars who find willing participants in their perceived right to use. Yet, once someone proves to society his or her inability to use safely without acting badly towards others, society has a right”in fact, an obligation”to proscribe use by whatever means are required.
Rational people might debate whether Gregory House, M.D., committed enough violations to submit to such testing. He neither physically nor financially harmed anyone else. He engages in verbal abuse while solving medical riddles that baffle the average doctor. I would submit that patients have a right to choose whether or not to use an addicted doctor. However, “It’s ok if you use because you are competent anyway,”requires testing.
In a bid to avoid jail, House heads to rehab. As he apparently begins weaning himself off his drug of choice, Vicodin, behaviors and attitudes improve (albeit unrealistically fast)”even to the point that his boss, Chief of Staff Cuddy, accepts a proposed solution to the medical mystery of the evening without argument, explaining that he used no put downs or demeaning words such as “moron”in describing his fellow doctors.
The cop who arrested House, Tritter, refuses to offer credit towards leniency in court. When House realizes that words and actions (entering rehab) won’t help him avoid jail, he rebels. Tritter, who understands addicts, asks House, “You ever trust an addict? You ever give one the benefit of the doubt [when treating one]?….People like you, even your actions lie.â€
And they do, with the help of enablers. Cuddy doesn’t want House, who is undoubtedly the most competent doctor she has ever employed, locked up. She ends up fabricating evidence and committing perjury under oath, claiming she switched Vicodin for a placebo when House took a dead man’s prescription. The judge lets him off, but due to contempt charges forces him into rehab, where Cuddy apparently slips him his Vicodin.
In a society where patients are not allowed to freely choose to use an addicted doctor for their medical needs, the best option is to require abstinence”enforced with random and regular testing for alcohol and other drugs.
By the way, due to the fact that she had so much to lose, the enabling by Cuddy was classic. In so many words, she told House, “I have dirt on you. You have to do my bidding, when I want, where I want. I control you.”The episode re-airs on USA Channel Friday, January 19 at 11 p.m.