DEA Focuses on Drug Distributors in Fight Against Painkiller Abuse
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is focusing on drug distributors in an effort to fight prescription painkiller abuse, The New York Times reports. In the past, the agency has tried tactics including arresting doctors and closing pharmacies.
Drug distributors are now trying to limit their liability by monitoring their distribution pipeline more closely, and refusing to supply some pharmacy customers.
Earlier this year, the DEA charged drug distributor Cardinal Health and four pharmacies with violating their licenses to sell controlled drugs. The DEA said Cardinal had an unusually high number of shipments of controlled painkillers to four pharmacies. The agency suspended Cardinal’s controlled substance license at its distribution center in Lakeland, Florida. The center serves 2,500 pharmacies in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
Cardinal no longer does business with a dozen pharmacies in at least four states, the article notes. Some of the drugstores unsuccessfully sued the company to resume shipments. Cardinal’s Chairman and Chief Executive, George S. Barrett, said the company has strengthened the criteria it uses in deciding whether to sell painkillers to a pharmacy. “We had a strong antidiversion system in place, but no system is perfect,” he told the newspaper. Cardinal has created a committee that evaluates pharmacies that order large amounts of narcotic drugs.
In August, Amerisource Bergen, the third-largest drug distributor in the United States, received subpoenas from the DEA and federal prosecutors seeking information on how the company monitors for possible diversions of opioids and other drugs with high potential for abuse.
Geeeeeze, the DEA is at it again. They used to think that methadone was diverted from the methadone clinics and they were afraid that there were going to have zombies walking the streets of our cities. When a longitudinal study was done. It was found that the diversion was much less than 3%. It was the medication with the least diversion ever. Methadone patients in their MMT clinics wanted to take their methadone, and few was diverting it. Besides methadone treatment was also over regulated and that was one of the reasons that diversion was few and far between. Now, the DEA is coming up with some doozies, they do not even have competent doctors in their staff and are much less concern about doing any research studies to find out if their policies and standards are on the level. They are all about law enforcement and being tough without consideration about making rational policies. God catch us in good grace.
This whole idea of closing pain clinics is just wrong and a huge mistake there are people who are truly in need of pain medication. I think it is just sad that everyone must suffer for the mistakes of others. Its up to each individual they make the choice to take prescription medication. comes at a huge risk for the patient and the doctors who rights the script but there must be competent doctors in place to handle this situation. They are totally lost when it comes to addiction treatment how much time do they truly spend in medical school learning about addiction treatment not much. We can legalize alchohol but not other substances alchohol is more dangersous than prescription drug use but we sale this substance without hesitation. I just think there is a double standard when it comes to prescribe opiate use.
All you managed to do was to make legal prescription pain meds unattainable for the chronically ill patients who needed them. This play will not be easily forgotten for the thousands of suffering patients and their families who were left out on a limb because of the reckless, callous decisions you made to the pharmacies and suppliers of pain meds.