The DEA's newly revised guidelines:

The DEA has sought to prevent drug theft and abuse by staff members in nursing homes, requiring signatures from doctors and an extra layer of approvals when certain pain drugs are ordered for sick patients.

The law, however, "fails to recognize how prescribing practitioners and the nurses who work for long-term care facilities and hospice programs actually order prescription medications," Kohl and Whitehouse write. They conclude that delays can lead to "adverse health outcomes and unnecessary rehospitalizations, not to mention needless suffering."

Another problem:

Most nursing homes do not have pharmacies or doctors on site, adding to delays for patients who fall ill late at night or in transition from a hospital.

A central issue, the DEA has not issued guidance on:

... whether a nurse could serve as an agent of a doctor and administer pain medication with a verbal directive rather than a written prescription from a doctor.

Because of the DEA's crackdown, pharmacies are balking at filling prescriptions:

The problem took on new urgency this year after the drug agents heightened their enforcement of the rules at pharmacies in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Virginia. The pharmacies face tens of thousands of dollars in fines if they deviate from strict controls that require doctors to sign paper prescriptions and fax them to a pharmacy before a nurse can administer them in the nursing home setting.

It's the war on drugs vs. the war on pain and the patients who need the meds are losing.

Doctors in nursing homes say the restrictions do not take into account that many more patients, with higher levels of illness and pain, are moving into long-term-care sites and out of hospitals.

Simply shameful.