The Drug Enforcement Administration issued detailed new guidelines designed to reassure worried doctors that they will not be prosecuted for prescribing high doses of powerful morphine-based painkillers for patients who need them for intractable pain.

The guidelines make clear that doctors have responsibilities to ensure that their patients are not abusing prescription opioids such as OxyContin and are not doctor-shopping to collect narcotics for illicit sales.

The new guidelines spell out the steps that ensure proper prescribing, such how to diagnose severe pain and keep proper records to justify the prescribing of a narcotic painkiller. Written largely in a question-and-answer form, the document makes clear to law enforcement authorities that even heavy use of prescription opioids can be appropriate and that the physical dependence it brings is not the same as physical addiction.

The DEA and other law enforcement agencies stepped up their prosecutions of doctors, pharmacists and some of their employees after the prescription narcotic OxyContin became widely used and abused in the late 1990s, resulting in numerous overdoses. With hundreds of doctors charged in recent years, pain patients and doctors who treat them have complained of a growing climate of fear -- adding to what is widely seen as a serious nationwide problem of inadequate pain treatment.