Guest speaker, and a founding member of the Puget Sound ACS Lawyer's Chapter, Philip Chandler, will speak about the current legal status of persons suffering from chronic pain and the physicians who try to help them.

The discussion will focus on the Controlled Substances Act of 1971, and how subsequent litigation has raised constitutional issues of substantive due process and equal protection for chronic pain patients. Important questions are: who should determine an appropriate level of opioid use - physicians or prosecutors?; and is "addiction" different than "physically dependent" according to law?