[Responsibility2nd]

• Distributors’ shipments often increased dramatically from one month to the next — or even week-to-week. In just two weeks, Cardinal Health’s sales jumped 1,500 percent to a drugstore in Williamson.
• Distributors continued to supply pharmacies with prescription painkillers, even though the companies were aware the drugstores were filling prescriptions for rogue doctors under investigation.
• In 2011, AmerisourceBergen, which shipped to Westside Pharmacy in Oceana, had a list of “pain doctors” who were writing the bulk of the store’s prescriptions. Five of the six had been convicted of federal charges or are under investigation. One doctor was located in Pembroke, Virginia, 100 miles away.
• The companies ignored federal laws that require them to report pharmacies that ordered a questionable number of prescription pain pills. Between 2006 and 2012, McKesson shipped 162.6 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia, but didn’t send any suspicious-order reports to the DEA. During the next four years, McKesson submitted 10,000 such reports.
• Distributors set limits on the number of opioids pharmacies could buy, but the companies routinely allowed the drugstores to exceed those caps. In Kermit, Sav-Rite ordered and received 36 times as many pills as McKesson’s in-house drug monitoring program permitted.
• As overdose deaths increased, the DEA’s enforcement actions against distributors declined — from 58 in 2011 to five in 2015.
• The DEA failed to use its drug-tracking database to flag massive shipments of painkillers to small towns like Kermit, Mount Gay and Williamson. Distributors shipped 13 million prescription opioids to Kermit between 2006 and 2012. By contrast, four Rite-Aid pharmacies combined only received about half that number of pills.
• For years, the DEA assigned only two agents to investigate the illegal diversion of prescription drugs in the entire state. West Virginia had the highest drug overdose death rate in the nation those years — and still does. The agency now has eight drug diversion investigators here.

[cuban leaf]

Makes me want to watch my DVD of “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” again.

[Responsibility2nd]

10,000 Hydrocodones a day. 400 residents.

The DEA is MIA.

[KC_Lion]

Hey, the pills are legal and not Cannabis so that makes it okay, right? >:(

[SaveFerris]

[ 900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills between 2005 and 2016. Thousands of West Virginians fatally overdosed after taking those prescription opioids during that time. ]

Holy cow

[VanShuyten]

I think I saw this on “Justified” several year ago. Theirs was a trailer in the middle of a pasture.

[jdietz]

Why is everyone blaming the manufacturers?

If there were not legitimate orders from legitimate pharmacies they would not have shipped them. They CANNOT ship without an order number.

If the pharmacy did not have legitimate prescriptions they would not have ordered the medicine. They CANNOT dispense without a valid prescription.

The problem here starts in the doctors office. If there is blame start with the abuser and the doctor.

[robowombat]

McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health alone combined to ship more than 900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills between 2005 and 2016. Thousands of West Virginians fatally overdosed after taking those prescription opioids during that time.

Well the distributors could take a feather from the American Tobacco Association's plumage and describe their activities as a public service as their product permanently removed many individuals from running up lifetimes of various welfare and social service costs as well as removing many degenerates from the gene pool in West Virginia.

[robowombat]

Just like Heaven, well maybe not:

Economy in Kermit, West Virginia
Kermit has an unemployment rate of 12.8%. The US average is 5.2%.

Kermit has seen the job market decrease by -7.2% over the last year. Future job growth over the next ten years is predicted to be 12.8%, which is lower than the US average of 38.0%.

Tax Rates for Kermit
- The Sales Tax Rate for Kermit is 6.0%. The US average is 6.0%.
- The Income Tax Rate for Kermit is 6.0%. The US average is 4.6%.

Income and Salaries for Kermit
- The average income of a Kermit resident is $22,924 a year. The US average is $28,555 a year.
- The Median household income of a Kermit resident is $40,500 a year. The US average is $53,482 a year.

[shanover]

It is a war vs Opiates but is full court press for legalized pot here in NJ. It is very bizarre.

[BlackAdderess]

oh no, not suspicious at all

[Dr. Ursus]

Culling the herd to bring in their replacements from Central America!

[Rebelbase]

Drug addiction is what big Pharma is all about.

[maine-iac7]

get the names of politicians who own stock in these drugs -

Are stockholders names public record?

FOLLOW THE MONEY

[DoughtyOne]

These are distribution firms, wholesalers.

They ARE NOT drug firms.

DRUG FIRMS manufacture medications.

[Brian Griffin]

“nearly 10,000 pills a day on average”

And that’s proves what?

One pharmacist might have been making money by buying in large wholesale quantity and reselling in smaller lots.

Buy at 90 cents a pill and resell to your fellow pharmacists at $1 a pill is $1,000/day profit.

I’d like to make $1,000/day with maybe $100,000 in capital.

Much of lower Manhattan north of the Wall Street area was once a wholesale district.

[Chode]

the pill pushers should spend the rest of their natural lives in prison

[monkeyshine]

In 2007? I’m so glag Congress is on top of things!