DOCTOR TESTIFIES ABOUT HIS EFFORTS TO CONTROL PRESLEY'S USE OF DRUGS - New York TimesDOCTOR TESTIFIES ABOUT HIS EFFORTS TO CONTROL PRESLEY'S USE OF DRUGS
Dr. George Nichopoulos took the witness stand today in his own defense and flatly denied criminal charges that he overprescribed controlled drugs to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and seven other patients. He asserted that his healing duties as a physician were always uppermost in his mind.
Dr. Nichopoulos acknowledged that, as Mr. Presley's personal physician, he prescribed numerous narcotics, sedatives and stimulants for the singer. But the doctor insisted he did this in the hope of gaining control of a drug dependence that was already established in Mr. Presley and the others. All those named in the indictment had been getting drugs from other sources, Dr. Nichopoulos testified.
''The goal with all these people was to control the medication,'' he said in a quiet voice from the witness stand. Prosecutors have produced prescriptions written in Mr. Presley's name over the last 31 1/2 months of his life, calling for more than 19,000 doses of narcotics, stimulants and sedatives.
However, the defense attorney, Jim Neal, has asserted that many of these drugs were thrown away and that placebos, or inactive pills, were substituted for others. The prescriptions were written, the attorney said, to convince the entertainer that he was receiving real drugs when he was in fact receiving many placebos. Relief of 'Pain and Suffering'
And there were valid medical reasons for Dr. Nichopoulos to prescribe many of the drugs to Mr. Presley, the lawyer added. ''Did you try to relieve the pain and suffering of Elvis Presley?'' Mr. Neal asked. ''Yes,'' replied the physician. ''Did you in good faith try to reduce Mr. Presley's drug habit?'' ''Yes.'' ''Dr. Nichopoulos, are you guilty of the charges in this case?'' ''No.'' Over the last seven months of Mr. Presley's life, Dr. Nichopoulos testified, he wrote seven letters to drug manufacturers ordering placebos. The last of these letters was dated Aug. 12, 1977, four days before Mr. Presley died inhis Memphis mansion, Graceland. The Shelby County medical examiner ruled officially that heart disease caused his death.
Dr. Nichopoulos also testified that Mr. Lewis, also a singer, and the seven other patients named in the indictment were in better condition today, mentally and physically, than they were when they first came to see him. (wow, Jerry Lee must've REALLLLLY been fucked up when he came to see Dr. Nick, because he almost died of a half-dollar size hole in his stomach about fifteen days after DRx. Nick perjured himeslf in court. --ed.)
The prosecutors, Jewett Miller and Jim Wilson, obtained the consent of Criminal Court Judge Bernie Weinman to postpone their crossexamination of Dr. Nichopoulos until Monday morning. They are expected to question him closely about the quantities of controlled drugs and the length of prescriptions he ordered for Mr. Presley, Mr. Lewis, Gail Clifton, Drew Smith, Ivan Smith, Barbara Kaplan, Barry Underberg, Alan Fortas and Marty Lacker. 'I Know I Helped Him'
However, Dr. Nichopoulos testified that he had helped all the patients either reduce or eliminate their drug dependency. When Mr. Lewis first came to see him in 1975, for instance, he was ingesting up to 30 amphetamines on nights when he would perform two concerts, Dr. Nichopoulos said. Yet, under his care, this drug intake was reduced to three amphetamines a night.
''My goal was to get Jerry drug-free,'' the physician said. This proved difficult, he added, since the entertainer would often ''backslide'' into taking street drugs. But, Dr. Nichopoulos said, ''I know I helped him. Today he's fine; he's off medication.''
Prosecutors called three doctors to the stand last week who testified that physicians should not continue prescribing drugs to people dependent on them. To do so, they said, violated accepted standards of medical practice.
However, Dr. Forest S. Tennant Jr., a drug researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles and a government drug consultant, testified yesterday that a doctor's best medical choice in some cases may be to maintain a patient on drugs. Recent research, he said, shows that some patients have such a strong physical craving for drugs that they are not able to function without them.
Such patients will buy drugs on the street in uncontrolled quantities if they cannot get them from a doctor, Dr. Tennant testified, suggesting that in these rare cases a physician's best alternative may be to supply limited quantities of drugs to control their intake while maintaining the health and productivity of these patients.