Dr. Clif Arrington is, by several accounts, a nice man.
Several letters to the editor published on these pages vouched just that, calling the Honalo doctor professional, ethical and beloved.
So strong were the feelings that something might put the doctor in a different light caused plenty of people to shake their fists.
“You should be ashamed,” one letter writer wrote to the West Hawaii Today editorial department.
“Your newspaper should print a front page retraction and apology for this article,” another letter writer wrote.
What did the paper do to draw such ire?
It reported about Arrington’s March 17 arrest by the Narcotics Enforcement Division and how he was released, pending investigation. He was not charged with a crime, although Toni Schwartz, a spokeswomen for the division, said they were investigating violations of the State Controlled Substances Act.
“NED investigations can take some time,” Schwartz wrote in an email at the time of the arrest. Then, earlier this week, she told WHT the investigation was still ongoing.
After the arrest, the reporter followed up — offering Dr. Arrington opportunity to share his side of the story, which the doctor declined, although his attorney spoke on his behalf. The story found that Arrington’s license to practice medicine was current, valid and in good standing, according to the Professional Vocation and Licensing Division of the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and that his practice was still running after the initial arrest. But it also pointed out that some pharmacies weren’t filling some of Arrington’s prescriptions that deal with medications under the Controlled Substance Act, which regulates meds such as oxycodone and Adderal. And the story also gave voice to patients who were negatively affected by not getting their medicine after the news hit.
So when the outpouring of character support poured in for Arrington, we were fine with publishing it. No one said he isn’t a nice man. We even published the letters calling the paper irresponsible for publishing the stories, although that was a little harder to swallow because we know the exact opposite was true: It was responsible.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more people died from drug overdoses in 2014 than in any year on record and the majority of drug overdose deaths — more than six out of 10 — involve an opioid.
“We now know that overdoses from prescription opioid pain relievers are a driving factor in the 15-year increase in opioid overdose deaths,” The CDC wrote in a statement titled Understanding the Epidemic. “Since 1999, the amount of prescription opioids sold in the U.S. nearly quadrupled, yet there has not been an overall change in the amount of pain that Americans report.”
We are not saying the doctor is overprescribing. We are not saying he is guilty. Not at all. We are offering national statistics on an alarming national trend as a backdrop as to why a local prescription doctor getting arrested would warrant pointing out to the community at the time it happens.
And if the investigation never materializes and the doctor is never charged, we would report that, too, just as we would if Dr. Arrington sought remedy for an unjust arrest.
And just as before, we’d offer Dr. Arrington a chance to tell the story as he sees it.