North Platte native involved in NFL labor talks

Jim McFarland, a North Platte native, was a pretty good prep quarterback at North Platte High School back in the mid-60s. After his high school playing career he walked on at Nebraska and became an all-conference tight end before moving on to a six-year pro football career with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Miami Dolphins. McFarland went on to earn a law degree at Cornell Law School and now practices law in Lincoln.

Aside from his typical work as a Lincoln lawyer, McFarland is active in the negotiations between the NFL Player's Association and the NFL as they try to negotiate a settlement to the NFL lockout of current NFL players.

The major issues for the players and owners are:

n A longer season - Expansion of the 16-game regular season to an 18-game season

n More money - From the $9.4 billion pro football revenue pie the owners now take $1.3 billion off the top for operating expenses and the players get roughly 60 percent of the remaining revenues. In the new agreement, the owners want to increase their cut off the top to $2 billion before the players begin to get their share. The owners say they need this extra money for the construction of new stadiums or the renovations of old ones.

n Rookie wage scale - Both sides tend to agree there is far too much money paid to unproven rookies who may not have successful pro football careers, but walk away with millions when released. Both sides should find this to be an easy fix but the players want any saving on this issue shifted to veteran players and retired players.

n Improved pension benefits for old-timers long ago retired - An older generation of professional football fans will remember the names of Merlin Olson, Jim Otto, Conrad Dobler, LeRoy Kelley and dozens of other pro players who finished their NFL careers and settled into a life of broken bodies, destitution and other severe health issues.

In wake of son's death, his mother seeks - North Platte Nebraska's ...

The North Platte Telegraph

Thanks in part to a complaint filed by a North Platte mother, a Colorado doctor accused of running a "pill mill" in a Denver suburb has been arrested and charged with more than 50 federal counts of distributing drugs outside the scope of his professional practice.

Court papers show osteopath Dr. Kevin Clemmer, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., was investigated in connection to the deaths of at least three people who took oxycodone, a powerful and addictive painkiller, prescribed by Clemmer.

One of those deaths was 23-year-old Ryan Lujan. The North Platte native, son of Carlos and Lisa Lujan, died of oxycodone toxicity on Sept. 3, 2010, in Lakewood, Colo.

"He went to this doctor [Clemmer], received this medication and within 24 hours he was dead," Lisa Lujan said.

It was a coroner who drew Lisa's attention to the prescription oxycodone found in her son's possession. The amount Clemmer had prescribed to Ryan, she said, was unreasonable for anyone.

"There weren't all that many missing from the bottle. These pills are just so strong," Lisa said. "It was the equivalent of what they would give a terminally ill cancer patient. Why prescribe all this to a healthy 23-year-old boy?

"This was a dirty doctor," Lisa added. "Ryan had a problem with pain pills. He battled with addiction, and this is where it led him - to a drug dealer with a medical license."

On the advice of her attorney, Lisa filed a complaint with the Colorado Medical Board. Authorities investigated Clemmer's medical practice and uncovered evidence that the doctor was essentially selling prescriptions for cash.

"He had been running his business on a cash-only basis for the last three years," Lisa said. "He was not doing a proper medical examination.

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