Free Beacon
BY: Charles Fain Lehman
January 21, 2019 11:20 am
New research links payments to docs with prescription opioid ODs
Pharmaceutical firms' direct marketing to doctors continues to cause prescription opioid deaths, a new study argues.
The study, released Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, uses publicly available data from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Centers for Disease Control to match prescribing rates with prescription opioid overdose rates. Deaths from "Natural or semisynthetic opioids"—the CDC code which generally refers to deaths from prescription opioids like Vicodin or Dilaudid—totaled just under 15,000 in 2017.
The study's authors note that while prescription pills are not the primary cause of opioid-involved overdose deaths—that distinction belongs to fentanyl, as well as heroin—they are usually the first opioids encountered by subsequent users of heroin/fentanyl. There were still almost 200 million opioid prescriptions issued in 2017, which the authors claim results in a rate three times higher than 1999.
Further, they note, "Direct-to-physician marketing by pharmaceutical companies is widespread in the United States and is associated with increased prescribing of the marketed products." One in 12 doctors received opioid-related marketing between 2013 and 2015; that figure rises to one in five among family physicians.
Direct-to-physician marketing was a key component of pharmaceutical firms' strategy to push pills to patients in the lead up to the current opioid crisis. The practice involves sales representatives approaching physicians, all-expenses paid trips to pharma-sponsored seminars on the benefits of prescription opioids, and even lucrative speaking gigs for those doctors who do the best job pushing a given drug.
Purdue Pharma, the creator of OxyContin, reportedly compiled comprehensive profiles of physicians to better target them and offered enormous bonuses, up to a quarter of a million dollars, for sales representatives who sold directly to major prescribers. A Senate report released last year found that five opioid manufacturers in five years alone spent $9 million in support of "patient advocate" groups responsible for downplaying the dangers of opioids to physicians.
As such, the new JAMA study's authors wanted to test the link between marketing, prescription rates, and prescription opioid overdose deaths. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act mandates disclosure of payments—usually in the form of meals, travel costs, speaking fees, and consulting fees—from pharmaceutical firms to doctors, including information about the drug being marketed. The authors combined this data with prescribing and death data to get a county-by-county picture of the nation from 2013 to 2016.
They then built a model, controlling for a number of confounding socio-demographic variables and looking at the connection between marketing in one year and overdose deaths in the subsequent year. Three different measures of marketing—value in dollars, number of payments per doctor, and number of doctors being paid—were strongly associated with an increase in both prescription rates and subsequent prescription overdose deaths. The study's authors also performed a "mediation analysis," concluding that increases in prescribing rates significantly mediated the association between marketing and deaths.
What the study means practically is that the millions of dollars pharmaceutical firms spend annually on marketing directly to doctors are causally linked to increased prescription rates, which are in turn linked to addiction and eventual overdose death.
This finding is likely good news for the massive, multi-jurisdiction civil suits now pending against opioid-producing pharmaceutical firms. And it is almost certainly more bad news for the pharmaceutical firms themselves, as well as the individuals who own and operate them. A Massachusetts lawsuit, for example, has individually charged members of the wealthy and notoriously reclusive Sackler family with complicity in family-company Purdue Pharma's responsibility for the opioid crisis. (Purdue has denied these allegations.)
At the same time, it is not clear that reductions in opioid prescribing rates will actually curb the crisis. The study focuses on deaths from prescription opioids, but past research indicates that the modification of prescription opioids to make them abuse-resistant simply resulted in an en masse switch to heroin among people who use. In other words, if the supply of prescription opioids fall, people who use will likely simply choose to abuse more dangerous opioids—including pills and heroin likely adulterated with fentanyl.
"Reducing the number of opioids prescribed is only one facet of a much-needed, multipronged public health effort to reduce opioid-related harm," the study's conclusion emphasizes, "and is unlikely to reduce the current high mortality from overdoses that are attributable to heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl."
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Thank You Mr Lehman and Free Beacon.
Showing posts with label Opioids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opioids. Show all posts
Monday, January 21, 2019
Top DOJ Official Reportedly Helped Keep Opioid Executives From Prison. She’s Since Defended Pharma Against The Government
Daily Caller
Ethan Barton | Senior Editor 1/20/2019
The head of the Justice Department’s criminal division during the George W. Bush administration reportedly opposed pursuing felony charges against pharmaceutical company executives for downplaying OxyContin’s dangers.
Top DOJ officials similarly rejected a prosecutor’s recommendation to file felony charges after they met with executives from Purdue Pharma and their defense team, according to The New York Times.
Members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, sought to mislead the public about abuse surrounding OxyContin, a lawsuit alleges, citing company emails and other documents.
The head of the Justice Department’s criminal division under President George W. Bush reportedly opposed levying felony charges against executives of a pharmaceutical company that’s widely blamed for helping start the opioid epidemic.
She has since joined a private law firm and has successfully defended pharmaceutical companies against government investigations.
A federal prosecutor recommended the felony indictments, which could have resulted in jail time if convictions were secured, but the DOJ officials rejected the notion after meeting with the Purdue Pharma executives and their defense team, according to The New York Times. It’s unclear if the criminal division chief attended that meeting.
Over 12 years later, it’s still unknown which senior officials attended that meeting, who rejected the indictment recommendations, and why they were rejected. Local and state governments have since mounted hundred of lawsuits against Purdue alleging the company downplayed the dangers of its blockbuster opioid, OxyContin.
The DOJ declined to comment on this story.
Purdue representatives lobbied top DOJ officials on multiple occasions during the Bush administration, according to news reports and congressional testimony. Future FBI Director James Comey was involved in one instance, and Rudy Giuliani, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s attorney, was tied to another.
The prosecutor who recommended felony indictments against Purdue executives found he was recommended for termination after a third instance that occurred hours before Purdue accepted a plea deal that was offered in lieu of felony charges.
As part of the plea deal, Purdue and three executives conceded they downplayed OxyContin’s addictiveness and collectively paid a historic $635 million in fines in 2007. No one saw jail time.
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people have died from overdoses involving prescription opioids since OxyContin was launched in 1996, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Purdue is privately owned by the Sackler family, whose wealth skyrocketed after OxyContin sales raked in $35 billion over a 20-year period, giving the family a $13 billion net worth and making them the 19th richest in the U.S. in 2016, according to Forbes. (RELATED: ‘Joy’ And ‘Fury’: Artist And Activist Nan Goldin Reacts To The Met’s Statement About Taking Opioid Money)
Massachusetts was one of the states to file a lawsuit against Purdue in 2018, but it uniquely named eight members of the Sackler family. A recent complaint cites documents indicating the Sacklers headed a campaign to deceive doctors about the dangers of OxyContin and passed blame of negative press onto addicts.
“The launch of OxyContin tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” Richard Sackler, the son of a Purdue founder and the company’s president from 1999 to 2003, said while celebrating the drug’s entrance to the market, according to a document cited in the complaint. “The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense, and white.”
Bush’s Justice Department Rejected Felony Charges After A Four-Year Investigation
Then-U.S. Attorney John Brownlee concluded a four-year investigation and recommended indicting the three Purdue executives on felony charges, including conspiracy to defraud the government, in September 2006, the Times reported in May 2018.
But top DOJ officials didn’t support his recommendation after meeting with Purdue executives and their defense team, according to Times reporter Barry Meier.
One defense lawyer for Purdue was Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor, and an adviser to the company’s legal team was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was also once a U.S. attorney.
The head of DOJ’s criminal division at the time, Alice Fisher, was one of the officials who didn’t support Brownlee’s recommendation, according to the Times. She’s now a partner at the law firm Latham & Watkins.
Her bio page says she recently represented “[g]lobal pharmaceutical companies in [Securities and Exchange Commission] and DOJ [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] investigations resulting in settlement resolutions and declinations of prosecutions.”
It also says she represented “Several global manufacturing companies about maintaining FCPA compliance and obtaining two declinations of prosecution.”
Fisher did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Brownlee publicly supported the decision not to prosecute the Purdue executives, but, according to Meier, he was privately upset. Brownlee did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment, and he’s previously declined to comment to other publications.
Top DOJ Officials Questioned Purdue Probes After Hearing From Company Representatives
There were additional occasions when top DOJ officials scrutinized Brownlee’s investigation after Purdue representatives contacted them.
After speaking with the company’s defense attorneys in 2005, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey asked Brownlee why he was pursing Purdue, Brownlee said during a 2007 congressional hearing. Brownlee, who was the federal prosecutor for the western district of Virginia, drove to Washington to explain the situation to Comey, who ultimately gave Brownlee the go-ahead to continue.
Additionally, Brownlee’s name appeared on a list of U.S. prosecutors recommended for termination soon after he ignored a top DOJ aide’s request to delay the plea deal.
Hours before the plea deal was set to expire in October 2006, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty’s chief of staff, Michael Elston, called Brownlee and asked him to extend Purdue’s deadline, the U.S. attorney testified.
“He told me he received a phone call from the defense lawyers about the case and that that the counsel had once again said that we were moving too quickly, that we had needed more time,” Brownlee said.
“Through his questions of me, I sensed that he was inquiring almost on their behalf,” he continued, noting Elston said he wasn’t calling at McNulty’s request.
Elston’s lawyer later said McNulty, who had replaced Comey, had asked Elston to call Brownlee, according to The Washington Post.
Elston told TheDCNF on Friday he called Brownlee on behalf of McNulty after the deputy attorney general noticed the deadline for the plea agreement was unusually tight. Elston said he was asking the prosecutor for information and not to tell Brownlee to give Purdue more time.
McNulty did not respond to a request for comment.
Regardless, Brownlee stuck with the original deadline and Purdue agreed to it hours later, Brownlee testified.
Eight days later, Brownlee’s name was included on a list Elston compiled of prosecutors recommended for termination, though he ultimately was not fired, the Post reported in 2007.
Elston told TheDCNF he did not recall any connection between Brownlee being included on the list and the Purdue case.
Also during the course of the government’s investigation into Purdue, Giuliani met with Asa Hutchinson in 2005, who was then the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief, Vanity Fair reported in 2007. The meeting came after the DEA found OxyContin could be responsible for 464 deaths over a two-year period.
Following his meeting with Giuliani, Hutchinson began asking DEA officials why they were still looking into Purdue.
Hutchinson is now the governor of Arkansas. He did not return a request for comment.
Legal Battles Against Purdue And The Sacklers Intensify
Deaths related to opioids have skyrocketed since the 2007 plea agreement, and the Sackler family, Purdue’s owners, largely kept its name separate from the epidemic, until recently.
TheDCNF began its “American Cartel” series in 2017, which tied the Sackler name to Purdue and investigated the family’s charitable givings. The Sacklers, until then, were known for their philanthropy, with famous institutions like New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art naming entire sections after the family.
Meanwhile, lawsuits against Purdue from across the country have racked up. Evidence has trickled out showing the Sacklers knew about OxyContin’s dangers earlier than they said and showing they kept that information from the public. (RELATED: Purdue Pharma Looks To ‘Turnaround Kid’ As Opioid Lawsuits Pile Up)
Federal prosecutors discovered that Purdue Pharma knew OxyContin was being abused soon after the drug’s 1996 launch, a confidential DOJ report shows, the Times reported in May 2018. The report also found members of the Sackler family were aware that OxyContin and its morphine-based predecessor were being abused.
And a Tuesday court filing alleged that the Sacklers knew that Purdue knew OxyContin was being illegally dealt and abused, but failed to report it to authorities.
“This is not too bad,” Richard Sackler said in 2001 while serving as Purdue’s president and after a federal prosecutor reported that there were 59 deaths involving OxyContin in just one state, according to a document cited in the complaint. “It could have been far worse.”
Purdue, at the direction of the Sacklers, pushed for doctors to prescribe higher doses of OxyContin and for longer periods, resulting in massive profits for the company and the family, the lawsuit claims.
The Massachusetts complaint “irresponsibly and counterproductively casts every prescription of OxyContin as dangerous and illegitimate,” Purdue spokesman Bob Josephson said in a statement, calling the allegations “sensational” and “misleading.”
He accused the state of trying to “vilify” the company.
Josephson did not comment on Purdue’s communications with the DOJ.
He also said the Food and Drug Administration has ruled OxyContin continues to be “safe and effective for their intended use” and that the government determined in 2013 Purdue had fulfilled its obligations related to the marketing of its medications.
“The complaint is littered with biased and inaccurate characterizations,” Josephson said.
The only known instance where a Sackler was deposed was sealed as part of a $24 million settlement with Kentucky in December 2015.
Purdue recently lost an appeal to keep Richard Sackler’s deposition secret, but the company is continuing to contest the ruling. The testimony remains sealed while legal battles persist.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Tags : department of justice oxycontin purdue pharma sackler family
Thank You DC and Mr Barton.
Ethan Barton | Senior Editor 1/20/2019
The head of the Justice Department’s criminal division during the George W. Bush administration reportedly opposed pursuing felony charges against pharmaceutical company executives for downplaying OxyContin’s dangers.
Top DOJ officials similarly rejected a prosecutor’s recommendation to file felony charges after they met with executives from Purdue Pharma and their defense team, according to The New York Times.
Members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, sought to mislead the public about abuse surrounding OxyContin, a lawsuit alleges, citing company emails and other documents.
The head of the Justice Department’s criminal division under President George W. Bush reportedly opposed levying felony charges against executives of a pharmaceutical company that’s widely blamed for helping start the opioid epidemic.
She has since joined a private law firm and has successfully defended pharmaceutical companies against government investigations.
A federal prosecutor recommended the felony indictments, which could have resulted in jail time if convictions were secured, but the DOJ officials rejected the notion after meeting with the Purdue Pharma executives and their defense team, according to The New York Times. It’s unclear if the criminal division chief attended that meeting.
Over 12 years later, it’s still unknown which senior officials attended that meeting, who rejected the indictment recommendations, and why they were rejected. Local and state governments have since mounted hundred of lawsuits against Purdue alleging the company downplayed the dangers of its blockbuster opioid, OxyContin.
The DOJ declined to comment on this story.
Purdue representatives lobbied top DOJ officials on multiple occasions during the Bush administration, according to news reports and congressional testimony. Future FBI Director James Comey was involved in one instance, and Rudy Giuliani, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s attorney, was tied to another.
The prosecutor who recommended felony indictments against Purdue executives found he was recommended for termination after a third instance that occurred hours before Purdue accepted a plea deal that was offered in lieu of felony charges.
As part of the plea deal, Purdue and three executives conceded they downplayed OxyContin’s addictiveness and collectively paid a historic $635 million in fines in 2007. No one saw jail time.
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people have died from overdoses involving prescription opioids since OxyContin was launched in 1996, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Purdue is privately owned by the Sackler family, whose wealth skyrocketed after OxyContin sales raked in $35 billion over a 20-year period, giving the family a $13 billion net worth and making them the 19th richest in the U.S. in 2016, according to Forbes. (RELATED: ‘Joy’ And ‘Fury’: Artist And Activist Nan Goldin Reacts To The Met’s Statement About Taking Opioid Money)
Massachusetts was one of the states to file a lawsuit against Purdue in 2018, but it uniquely named eight members of the Sackler family. A recent complaint cites documents indicating the Sacklers headed a campaign to deceive doctors about the dangers of OxyContin and passed blame of negative press onto addicts.
“The launch of OxyContin tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” Richard Sackler, the son of a Purdue founder and the company’s president from 1999 to 2003, said while celebrating the drug’s entrance to the market, according to a document cited in the complaint. “The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense, and white.”
Bush’s Justice Department Rejected Felony Charges After A Four-Year Investigation
Then-U.S. Attorney John Brownlee concluded a four-year investigation and recommended indicting the three Purdue executives on felony charges, including conspiracy to defraud the government, in September 2006, the Times reported in May 2018.
But top DOJ officials didn’t support his recommendation after meeting with Purdue executives and their defense team, according to Times reporter Barry Meier.
One defense lawyer for Purdue was Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor, and an adviser to the company’s legal team was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was also once a U.S. attorney.
The head of DOJ’s criminal division at the time, Alice Fisher, was one of the officials who didn’t support Brownlee’s recommendation, according to the Times. She’s now a partner at the law firm Latham & Watkins.
Her bio page says she recently represented “[g]lobal pharmaceutical companies in [Securities and Exchange Commission] and DOJ [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] investigations resulting in settlement resolutions and declinations of prosecutions.”
It also says she represented “Several global manufacturing companies about maintaining FCPA compliance and obtaining two declinations of prosecution.”
Fisher did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Brownlee publicly supported the decision not to prosecute the Purdue executives, but, according to Meier, he was privately upset. Brownlee did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment, and he’s previously declined to comment to other publications.
Top DOJ Officials Questioned Purdue Probes After Hearing From Company Representatives
There were additional occasions when top DOJ officials scrutinized Brownlee’s investigation after Purdue representatives contacted them.
After speaking with the company’s defense attorneys in 2005, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey asked Brownlee why he was pursing Purdue, Brownlee said during a 2007 congressional hearing. Brownlee, who was the federal prosecutor for the western district of Virginia, drove to Washington to explain the situation to Comey, who ultimately gave Brownlee the go-ahead to continue.
Additionally, Brownlee’s name appeared on a list of U.S. prosecutors recommended for termination soon after he ignored a top DOJ aide’s request to delay the plea deal.
Hours before the plea deal was set to expire in October 2006, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty’s chief of staff, Michael Elston, called Brownlee and asked him to extend Purdue’s deadline, the U.S. attorney testified.
“He told me he received a phone call from the defense lawyers about the case and that that the counsel had once again said that we were moving too quickly, that we had needed more time,” Brownlee said.
“Through his questions of me, I sensed that he was inquiring almost on their behalf,” he continued, noting Elston said he wasn’t calling at McNulty’s request.
Elston’s lawyer later said McNulty, who had replaced Comey, had asked Elston to call Brownlee, according to The Washington Post.
Elston told TheDCNF on Friday he called Brownlee on behalf of McNulty after the deputy attorney general noticed the deadline for the plea agreement was unusually tight. Elston said he was asking the prosecutor for information and not to tell Brownlee to give Purdue more time.
McNulty did not respond to a request for comment.
Regardless, Brownlee stuck with the original deadline and Purdue agreed to it hours later, Brownlee testified.
Eight days later, Brownlee’s name was included on a list Elston compiled of prosecutors recommended for termination, though he ultimately was not fired, the Post reported in 2007.
Elston told TheDCNF he did not recall any connection between Brownlee being included on the list and the Purdue case.
Also during the course of the government’s investigation into Purdue, Giuliani met with Asa Hutchinson in 2005, who was then the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief, Vanity Fair reported in 2007. The meeting came after the DEA found OxyContin could be responsible for 464 deaths over a two-year period.
Following his meeting with Giuliani, Hutchinson began asking DEA officials why they were still looking into Purdue.
Hutchinson is now the governor of Arkansas. He did not return a request for comment.
Legal Battles Against Purdue And The Sacklers Intensify
Deaths related to opioids have skyrocketed since the 2007 plea agreement, and the Sackler family, Purdue’s owners, largely kept its name separate from the epidemic, until recently.
TheDCNF began its “American Cartel” series in 2017, which tied the Sackler name to Purdue and investigated the family’s charitable givings. The Sacklers, until then, were known for their philanthropy, with famous institutions like New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art naming entire sections after the family.
Meanwhile, lawsuits against Purdue from across the country have racked up. Evidence has trickled out showing the Sacklers knew about OxyContin’s dangers earlier than they said and showing they kept that information from the public. (RELATED: Purdue Pharma Looks To ‘Turnaround Kid’ As Opioid Lawsuits Pile Up)
Federal prosecutors discovered that Purdue Pharma knew OxyContin was being abused soon after the drug’s 1996 launch, a confidential DOJ report shows, the Times reported in May 2018. The report also found members of the Sackler family were aware that OxyContin and its morphine-based predecessor were being abused.
And a Tuesday court filing alleged that the Sacklers knew that Purdue knew OxyContin was being illegally dealt and abused, but failed to report it to authorities.
“This is not too bad,” Richard Sackler said in 2001 while serving as Purdue’s president and after a federal prosecutor reported that there were 59 deaths involving OxyContin in just one state, according to a document cited in the complaint. “It could have been far worse.”
Purdue, at the direction of the Sacklers, pushed for doctors to prescribe higher doses of OxyContin and for longer periods, resulting in massive profits for the company and the family, the lawsuit claims.
The Massachusetts complaint “irresponsibly and counterproductively casts every prescription of OxyContin as dangerous and illegitimate,” Purdue spokesman Bob Josephson said in a statement, calling the allegations “sensational” and “misleading.”
He accused the state of trying to “vilify” the company.
Josephson did not comment on Purdue’s communications with the DOJ.
He also said the Food and Drug Administration has ruled OxyContin continues to be “safe and effective for their intended use” and that the government determined in 2013 Purdue had fulfilled its obligations related to the marketing of its medications.
“The complaint is littered with biased and inaccurate characterizations,” Josephson said.
The only known instance where a Sackler was deposed was sealed as part of a $24 million settlement with Kentucky in December 2015.
Purdue recently lost an appeal to keep Richard Sackler’s deposition secret, but the company is continuing to contest the ruling. The testimony remains sealed while legal battles persist.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Tags : department of justice oxycontin purdue pharma sackler family
Thank You DC and Mr Barton.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Federal Agents Seized Nearly 1,000 Pounds of Narcotics and 9,000 Fentanyl Pills
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4:45 PM 05/31/2018
Federal agents conducting drug investigations in Arizona recently seized nearly 1,000 pounds of narcotics and more than 9,000 fentanyl pills.
Officials with the Department of Interior’s Opioid Reduction Task Force conducted interdiction operations between May 15 and May 26 in Arizona. The investigations, which focused on drug trafficking on the Tohono O’odham and Gila River Indian reservations, resulted in 86 arrests, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Agents seized 9,050 counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, 48 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.2 pounds of heroin, 863 pounds of marijuana, a half pound of cocaine and roughly $30,000 in cash. The fentanyl pills, combined with the roughly 913.5 pounds of narcotics, carried an estimated street value of nearly $5 million.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the scale of the problem; and rather than further stigmatizing victims, we are cracking down on the dealers who are selling out our children, selling out our communities, and selling out our nation,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a statement Thursday. “These brave men and women are keeping the opioid dealers up at night, and with good reason; if you are trafficking these drugs, we will find you, arrest you, and bring you to justice.”
Large quantities of narcotics, particularly synthetic opioids like fentanyl, continue to infiltrate the U.S. due to the relentless efforts of traffickers. However, the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is gaining ground against drug movers taking advantage of America’s opioid scourge.
Fentanyl seizures by Border Patrol agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection increased by 72 percent in 2017, a recent report from Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill shows. The number of overall opioid seizures nearly doubled from 579 pounds in 2013 to 1,135 pounds in 2017 — a reflection of the deteriorating addiction crisis in the U.S.
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4:45 PM 05/31/2018
Federal agents conducting drug investigations in Arizona recently seized nearly 1,000 pounds of narcotics and more than 9,000 fentanyl pills.
Officials with the Department of Interior’s Opioid Reduction Task Force conducted interdiction operations between May 15 and May 26 in Arizona. The investigations, which focused on drug trafficking on the Tohono O’odham and Gila River Indian reservations, resulted in 86 arrests, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Agents seized 9,050 counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, 48 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.2 pounds of heroin, 863 pounds of marijuana, a half pound of cocaine and roughly $30,000 in cash. The fentanyl pills, combined with the roughly 913.5 pounds of narcotics, carried an estimated street value of nearly $5 million.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the scale of the problem; and rather than further stigmatizing victims, we are cracking down on the dealers who are selling out our children, selling out our communities, and selling out our nation,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a statement Thursday. “These brave men and women are keeping the opioid dealers up at night, and with good reason; if you are trafficking these drugs, we will find you, arrest you, and bring you to justice.”
Large quantities of narcotics, particularly synthetic opioids like fentanyl, continue to infiltrate the U.S. due to the relentless efforts of traffickers. However, the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is gaining ground against drug movers taking advantage of America’s opioid scourge.
Fentanyl seizures by Border Patrol agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection increased by 72 percent in 2017, a recent report from Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill shows. The number of overall opioid seizures nearly doubled from 579 pounds in 2013 to 1,135 pounds in 2017 — a reflection of the deteriorating addiction crisis in the U.S.
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Children of The Opioid Epidemic
NYT
Jennifer Egan May 9, 2018
It was not until her third month of feeling unwell, in the fall of 2016, that Alicia thought to take an at-home pregnancy test. Until then, she assumed her fatigue and nausea were withdrawal symptoms from the Percocets she’d been dependent upon since the year before. “When some days you don’t get enough, you could definitely throw up or wake up feeling sick,” she told me. “It was easily confused with morning sickness.”
Alicia, who asked that I use her nickname to protect her privacy, was 26 at the time, living with her boyfriend in a tiny apartment just outside Providence, R.I. From the start of their relationship, she had been inspired by his seriousness; he had a job in I.T. that paid $20 an hour. Unlike some of her previous boyfriends, this one wore collared shirts to work and did not use drugs. He had a gangly earnestness that was endearing. “He grew up as a good boy,” Alicia told me. “He did what was right, and he was smart. I wish I could have been like that.”
She had struggled with drugs and alcohol since age 15. Family life was often painful; her father, a mechanic, was an alcoholic (he quit drinking years ago); she has a mentally ill sibling; and her mother, a secretary who later went back to school and became a corporate manager, held the family together in a suburb outside Providence. As a teenager, Alicia was shy and often depressed — afraid of saying the wrong thing and looking foolish. “All of this paranoia and social anxiety, it made me very worked up,” she told me last May. “I could never look normal in a social setting.” At 15, she discovered that being high made her loose and funny. “I had my first drink, I tried weed, I had my first cigarette,” she told me. “I was able to go out and hang out with people. I wasn’t isolating myself and staying home. I created a whole new personality of me.” As an older teenager, she began taking the bus into Providence and hanging out with a crowd of drug-using adults, many of whom were homeless. “After 18, 19, I felt like, Whoa, I don’t even know who I am without using stuff.”
Continue Reading
Thank You Ms Egan and NYT.
Jennifer Egan May 9, 2018
It was not until her third month of feeling unwell, in the fall of 2016, that Alicia thought to take an at-home pregnancy test. Until then, she assumed her fatigue and nausea were withdrawal symptoms from the Percocets she’d been dependent upon since the year before. “When some days you don’t get enough, you could definitely throw up or wake up feeling sick,” she told me. “It was easily confused with morning sickness.”
Alicia, who asked that I use her nickname to protect her privacy, was 26 at the time, living with her boyfriend in a tiny apartment just outside Providence, R.I. From the start of their relationship, she had been inspired by his seriousness; he had a job in I.T. that paid $20 an hour. Unlike some of her previous boyfriends, this one wore collared shirts to work and did not use drugs. He had a gangly earnestness that was endearing. “He grew up as a good boy,” Alicia told me. “He did what was right, and he was smart. I wish I could have been like that.”
She had struggled with drugs and alcohol since age 15. Family life was often painful; her father, a mechanic, was an alcoholic (he quit drinking years ago); she has a mentally ill sibling; and her mother, a secretary who later went back to school and became a corporate manager, held the family together in a suburb outside Providence. As a teenager, Alicia was shy and often depressed — afraid of saying the wrong thing and looking foolish. “All of this paranoia and social anxiety, it made me very worked up,” she told me last May. “I could never look normal in a social setting.” At 15, she discovered that being high made her loose and funny. “I had my first drink, I tried weed, I had my first cigarette,” she told me. “I was able to go out and hang out with people. I wasn’t isolating myself and staying home. I created a whole new personality of me.” As an older teenager, she began taking the bus into Providence and hanging out with a crowd of drug-using adults, many of whom were homeless. “After 18, 19, I felt like, Whoa, I don’t even know who I am without using stuff.”
Continue Reading
Thank You Ms Egan and NYT.
Monday, May 7, 2018
DEA Knowingly Let Admitted Addicts, Dealers Prescribe Drugs
dailycaller
Ethan Barton Investigative Reporter
8:09 PM 05/07/2018
Admitted drug addicts and dealers were among the hundreds of thousands of people and businesses the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) licensed to manufacture, distribute or prescribe pharmaceuticals over the past 12 years, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found. The agency stripped only 240 licenses for wrong-doing over the same period.
The DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, which is responsible for issuing and revoking the permits, is, by law, fully funded by the licenses’ application fees. More than 1.7 million individuals and organizations held licenses as of March 2018 — an increase of more than 510,000 since August 2006, the earliest publicly available data, TheDCNF’s review found.
“The office … has not been very aggressive in hunting down doctors [who] are prescribing in inappropriate ways,” said Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jonathan Caulkins, who’s worked extensively in drug policy. “The DEA does not aggressively try to find corrupt or incompetent health care providers in the health care system.”
Effective enforcement is especially important given the growing opioid epidemic, Caulkins added. More than 200,000 Americans died from prescription drug overdoses between 1999 and 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most heroin users begin their addiction with such prescriptions, studies have shown.
The DEA ruled on 430 investigations into licensed individuals and groups since March 2006. The agency only revoked 240 licenses and denied applications for another 106, according to a DCNF review of the investigations.
“It is not really believable from my perspective that if they had proper enforcement … that that number [of revocations] would be so low,” Public Citizen’s Health Research Group Founder and Senior Adviser Sidney Wolfe told TheDCNF. “We don’t have adequate, serious law enforcement that musters all of the evidence they have and then acts appropriately. If we did, that number would be in the thousands.”
Most states maintain databases with information about how prescription drugs are dispensed, Wolfe also noted.
“I would bet DEA itself does not collect the data from these states that could be useful in deciding if it’s safe to re-register someone,” Wolfe added. “It’s poor law enforcement. These are crucial, life-challenging things that are going on.”
Meanwhile, the DEA gave out licenses to people who admitted to having been addicted to or dealt drugs in the past.
One dentist, for example, admitted to helping “an outlaw motorcycle gang” manufacture methamphetamine in the early 2000s, which resulted in two years of jail time, a DEA document said. He’d previously been caught with meth several times and admitted to “a history of substance abuse with alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine.”
The DEA gave him a license to prescribe certain drugs in September 2013.
A doctor was caught distributing cocaine in 1981 but wasn’t prosecuted because he cooperated with authorities, another DEA document shows. He was arrested again in 2001 with cocaine and two prescription drugs — an opioid and a minor tranquilizer — and pleaded guilty to related charges in 2003.
The DEA gave him a license to prescribe drugs in February 2009.
“The number of doctors themselves [who] have opioid problems is probably higher than the number of [revocations],” Wolfe told TheDCNF. “If you have an opioid addiction, the last thing you should be doing is prescribing opioids.”
However, “doctors have a relatively high risk of addiction” and there is rehabilitation specifically designed for physicians, Caulkins said.
Also, 72 percent “of all substances identified in physician arrests since 2003 were opioids,” according to a recent Detox.net study that analyzed DEA data.
Government watchdogs have also repeatedly criticized the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control.
Even when the DEA revokes a license or denies an application or renewal, the decision-making process can be lengthy, the Department of Justice’s inspector general (IG) found in 2014. It took the agency an average of nearly two years to make a final decisions on cases in 2009, though that decreased to just one year by 2012.
“Such delays can create risks to public health and safety by allowing noncompliant registrants to operate their business or practice while the registrant action is being adjudicated,” the IG wrote. For example, a doctor can keep writing prescriptions — even after the DEA proposed revoking his license — until a ruling is made.
Just one doctor prescribing medications in an abusive manner could harm hundreds of patients, according to Wolfe.
Just one percent of special agents’ investigative time in 2005 was spent on drug diversion probes, according to a 2006 IG report. Intelligence analysts, likewise spent just over five percent of their time on such investigations that same year.
The report cited a 2004 survey that found 2.4 million people “used prescription pain relievers non-medically for the first time within the past 12 months. This number was the largest number of new users for any type of illicitly used drug during that same time period.”
Additionally, the number of people who admitted to abusing prescription drugs between 1992 and 2003 nearly doubled, according to another study the IG cited.
Still, the DEA provided little instruction in the way of investigating prescription drug trafficking.
“DEA special agents have received minimal diversion control training,” the report stated. At the time of the report, only 98 special agents had taken a week-long course, while the rest had only received a two-hour session during basic training that consisted of a video from 1996.
The video was produced the same year OxyContin was made publicly available, which critics have widely blamed for initiating the opioid epidemic. The prescription painkiller’s manufacturer — Sackler Family owned Purdue Pharma — launched an aggressive and deceptive marketing campaign promoting the drug.
In fact, company representatives downplayed OxyContin’s addictiveness and consequently paid nearly $635 million in 2007 — just one year after the IG report was published — Purdue and three top executive admitted in court.
Doctors can spend years in jail if they’re caught overprescribing opioid medications, but the Purdue executives only had to pay a fine, Wolfe pointed out.
Purdue, which is now facing hundreds of lawsuits around the U.S., raked in $35 billion in OxyContin sales between the time of its release and 2015, helping The Sacklers become one of the nation’s wealthiest families with a $13 billion net worth, according to Forbes.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog, also found problems with the diversion office — specifically regarding its ability to monitor individuals with licenses to prescribe drugs.
More than 760 people of the then-1.4 million registered with the DEA “were potentially ineligible” for licenses because the Social Security Administration reported them as dead, they did not have state-level permission to prescribe or distribute controlled substances or “were incarcerated for felony offenses related to controlled substances,” the 2016 GAO report stated.
Also, nearly 700 Social Security numbers in the DEA’s database were registered to multiple names or variations of names, “which can be a risk indicator of potential fraud,” the report showed.
Another nearly 42,000 entries in the DEA’s database listed an employer identification number rather than a Social Security number, the GAO found, which makes it more difficult to conduct background checks and prevent fraudulent identities.
In fact, one person convicted of defrauding Medicare in June 2013 was still actively registered with the DEA to dole out drugs as of January 2016, the GAO pointed out. The drug agency had no notes about the crime in its system.
Additionally, the DEA doesn’t conduct criminal background checks after an individual receives their license unless the crime is either self-reported or if the state of practice informs the agency, according to the GAO report.
Although the DEA’s diversion control office is supposed to be fully funded through the fees people pay to acquire the drug licenses, it’s faced periods of especially tight budgets, according to a 2008 IG report.
“I do think it is odd that the office has to be funded out of licensee fees,” Caulkins told TheDCNF. “It should be funded at whatever level it takes to get the job done. Perhaps that is less than the license fee revenue. Perhaps it is more.”
“It seems quite arbitrary to imagine that license fee revenue would end up magically providing just the right level of funding,” he continued. “But DEA would have to revoke an awful lot of licenses to seriously hurt that revenue stream (and it could presumably increase the size of the license fee by one percent to offset the losses).”
The DEA, for example, raised registration fees for the first time in 10 years in October 2003 in part to respond “to the threat of OxyContin abuse,” according to the IG report.
The DEA expected to rake in $238 million in 2006 but fell short by $75 million — or about one-third of the agency’s projection — the IG found. In 2007, the DEA settled a lawsuit that increased the amount the agency had to pay diversion investigators for overtime, which put additional financial restrictions on the diversion control office.
Consequently, the diversion office was forced to tighten its purse strings, according to the IG report.
“We found that overtime, travel and equipment purchases had been limited during the period of our review” as a result of the lawsuit and the revenue shortfalls, the report stated.
The DEA collected $235 million in fees in 2009, which increased by about 40 percent — or $93 million — by 2013, according to a 2015 GAO report. The number of registrants, meanwhile, increased by roughly 15 percent over the same period, TheDCNF’s review found.
The DEA’s role and effectiveness in fighting the opioid epidemic has also recently come under fire.
One West Virginia county with a population of less than 3,000 was flooded with nearly 21 million opioid pills from two pharmaceutical wholesalers over roughly a 10-year period, a House Committee on Energy and Commerce investigation found. Republicans and Democrats alike scrutinized the DEA for failing to stop the pill dumping.
Lawmakers have also grilled the DEA for its lack of cooperation in the committee’s investigation, and the agency has faced subpoena threats for slow-walking the release of related documents.
Additionally, pharmaceutical companies hired high-ranking DEA officials after leaving the agency, a joint Washington Post and “60 Minutes” investigation found. The agency also began to limit how often it immediately suspended pharmaceutical distributors that were shipping suspiciously large volumes of pills.
The DEA ultimately didn’t oppose a 2016 bill pharmaceutical industry-backed members of Congress sponsored and co-sponsored that essentially eliminated the agency’s ability to use such suspensions, the investigation found. The legislation consequently passed with unanimous consent, and then-President Barack Obama signed it without question.
Both Caulkins and Wolfe noted the power pharmaceutical companies hold in forming policy and legislation, which has helped bind the DEA.
“There’s enormous influence in this industry,” Wolfe told TheDCNF.
The DEA did not respond to requests for comment.
Andrew Kerr and Grace Carr contributed to this report.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Tags: Drug Enforcement Administration, Government Accountability Office, Inspectors General
Thank You Mr Barton and the DC.
Ethan Barton Investigative Reporter
8:09 PM 05/07/2018
Admitted drug addicts and dealers were among the hundreds of thousands of people and businesses the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) licensed to manufacture, distribute or prescribe pharmaceuticals over the past 12 years, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found. The agency stripped only 240 licenses for wrong-doing over the same period.
The DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, which is responsible for issuing and revoking the permits, is, by law, fully funded by the licenses’ application fees. More than 1.7 million individuals and organizations held licenses as of March 2018 — an increase of more than 510,000 since August 2006, the earliest publicly available data, TheDCNF’s review found.
“The office … has not been very aggressive in hunting down doctors [who] are prescribing in inappropriate ways,” said Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jonathan Caulkins, who’s worked extensively in drug policy. “The DEA does not aggressively try to find corrupt or incompetent health care providers in the health care system.”
Effective enforcement is especially important given the growing opioid epidemic, Caulkins added. More than 200,000 Americans died from prescription drug overdoses between 1999 and 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most heroin users begin their addiction with such prescriptions, studies have shown.
The DEA ruled on 430 investigations into licensed individuals and groups since March 2006. The agency only revoked 240 licenses and denied applications for another 106, according to a DCNF review of the investigations.
“It is not really believable from my perspective that if they had proper enforcement … that that number [of revocations] would be so low,” Public Citizen’s Health Research Group Founder and Senior Adviser Sidney Wolfe told TheDCNF. “We don’t have adequate, serious law enforcement that musters all of the evidence they have and then acts appropriately. If we did, that number would be in the thousands.”
Most states maintain databases with information about how prescription drugs are dispensed, Wolfe also noted.
“I would bet DEA itself does not collect the data from these states that could be useful in deciding if it’s safe to re-register someone,” Wolfe added. “It’s poor law enforcement. These are crucial, life-challenging things that are going on.”
Meanwhile, the DEA gave out licenses to people who admitted to having been addicted to or dealt drugs in the past.
One dentist, for example, admitted to helping “an outlaw motorcycle gang” manufacture methamphetamine in the early 2000s, which resulted in two years of jail time, a DEA document said. He’d previously been caught with meth several times and admitted to “a history of substance abuse with alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine.”
The DEA gave him a license to prescribe certain drugs in September 2013.
A doctor was caught distributing cocaine in 1981 but wasn’t prosecuted because he cooperated with authorities, another DEA document shows. He was arrested again in 2001 with cocaine and two prescription drugs — an opioid and a minor tranquilizer — and pleaded guilty to related charges in 2003.
The DEA gave him a license to prescribe drugs in February 2009.
“The number of doctors themselves [who] have opioid problems is probably higher than the number of [revocations],” Wolfe told TheDCNF. “If you have an opioid addiction, the last thing you should be doing is prescribing opioids.”
However, “doctors have a relatively high risk of addiction” and there is rehabilitation specifically designed for physicians, Caulkins said.
Also, 72 percent “of all substances identified in physician arrests since 2003 were opioids,” according to a recent Detox.net study that analyzed DEA data.
Government watchdogs have also repeatedly criticized the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control.
Even when the DEA revokes a license or denies an application or renewal, the decision-making process can be lengthy, the Department of Justice’s inspector general (IG) found in 2014. It took the agency an average of nearly two years to make a final decisions on cases in 2009, though that decreased to just one year by 2012.
“Such delays can create risks to public health and safety by allowing noncompliant registrants to operate their business or practice while the registrant action is being adjudicated,” the IG wrote. For example, a doctor can keep writing prescriptions — even after the DEA proposed revoking his license — until a ruling is made.
Just one doctor prescribing medications in an abusive manner could harm hundreds of patients, according to Wolfe.
Just one percent of special agents’ investigative time in 2005 was spent on drug diversion probes, according to a 2006 IG report. Intelligence analysts, likewise spent just over five percent of their time on such investigations that same year.
The report cited a 2004 survey that found 2.4 million people “used prescription pain relievers non-medically for the first time within the past 12 months. This number was the largest number of new users for any type of illicitly used drug during that same time period.”
Additionally, the number of people who admitted to abusing prescription drugs between 1992 and 2003 nearly doubled, according to another study the IG cited.
Still, the DEA provided little instruction in the way of investigating prescription drug trafficking.
“DEA special agents have received minimal diversion control training,” the report stated. At the time of the report, only 98 special agents had taken a week-long course, while the rest had only received a two-hour session during basic training that consisted of a video from 1996.
The video was produced the same year OxyContin was made publicly available, which critics have widely blamed for initiating the opioid epidemic. The prescription painkiller’s manufacturer — Sackler Family owned Purdue Pharma — launched an aggressive and deceptive marketing campaign promoting the drug.
In fact, company representatives downplayed OxyContin’s addictiveness and consequently paid nearly $635 million in 2007 — just one year after the IG report was published — Purdue and three top executive admitted in court.
Doctors can spend years in jail if they’re caught overprescribing opioid medications, but the Purdue executives only had to pay a fine, Wolfe pointed out.
Purdue, which is now facing hundreds of lawsuits around the U.S., raked in $35 billion in OxyContin sales between the time of its release and 2015, helping The Sacklers become one of the nation’s wealthiest families with a $13 billion net worth, according to Forbes.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog, also found problems with the diversion office — specifically regarding its ability to monitor individuals with licenses to prescribe drugs.
More than 760 people of the then-1.4 million registered with the DEA “were potentially ineligible” for licenses because the Social Security Administration reported them as dead, they did not have state-level permission to prescribe or distribute controlled substances or “were incarcerated for felony offenses related to controlled substances,” the 2016 GAO report stated.
Also, nearly 700 Social Security numbers in the DEA’s database were registered to multiple names or variations of names, “which can be a risk indicator of potential fraud,” the report showed.
Another nearly 42,000 entries in the DEA’s database listed an employer identification number rather than a Social Security number, the GAO found, which makes it more difficult to conduct background checks and prevent fraudulent identities.
In fact, one person convicted of defrauding Medicare in June 2013 was still actively registered with the DEA to dole out drugs as of January 2016, the GAO pointed out. The drug agency had no notes about the crime in its system.
Additionally, the DEA doesn’t conduct criminal background checks after an individual receives their license unless the crime is either self-reported or if the state of practice informs the agency, according to the GAO report.
Although the DEA’s diversion control office is supposed to be fully funded through the fees people pay to acquire the drug licenses, it’s faced periods of especially tight budgets, according to a 2008 IG report.
“I do think it is odd that the office has to be funded out of licensee fees,” Caulkins told TheDCNF. “It should be funded at whatever level it takes to get the job done. Perhaps that is less than the license fee revenue. Perhaps it is more.”
“It seems quite arbitrary to imagine that license fee revenue would end up magically providing just the right level of funding,” he continued. “But DEA would have to revoke an awful lot of licenses to seriously hurt that revenue stream (and it could presumably increase the size of the license fee by one percent to offset the losses).”
The DEA, for example, raised registration fees for the first time in 10 years in October 2003 in part to respond “to the threat of OxyContin abuse,” according to the IG report.
The DEA expected to rake in $238 million in 2006 but fell short by $75 million — or about one-third of the agency’s projection — the IG found. In 2007, the DEA settled a lawsuit that increased the amount the agency had to pay diversion investigators for overtime, which put additional financial restrictions on the diversion control office.
Consequently, the diversion office was forced to tighten its purse strings, according to the IG report.
“We found that overtime, travel and equipment purchases had been limited during the period of our review” as a result of the lawsuit and the revenue shortfalls, the report stated.
The DEA collected $235 million in fees in 2009, which increased by about 40 percent — or $93 million — by 2013, according to a 2015 GAO report. The number of registrants, meanwhile, increased by roughly 15 percent over the same period, TheDCNF’s review found.
The DEA’s role and effectiveness in fighting the opioid epidemic has also recently come under fire.
One West Virginia county with a population of less than 3,000 was flooded with nearly 21 million opioid pills from two pharmaceutical wholesalers over roughly a 10-year period, a House Committee on Energy and Commerce investigation found. Republicans and Democrats alike scrutinized the DEA for failing to stop the pill dumping.
Lawmakers have also grilled the DEA for its lack of cooperation in the committee’s investigation, and the agency has faced subpoena threats for slow-walking the release of related documents.
Additionally, pharmaceutical companies hired high-ranking DEA officials after leaving the agency, a joint Washington Post and “60 Minutes” investigation found. The agency also began to limit how often it immediately suspended pharmaceutical distributors that were shipping suspiciously large volumes of pills.
The DEA ultimately didn’t oppose a 2016 bill pharmaceutical industry-backed members of Congress sponsored and co-sponsored that essentially eliminated the agency’s ability to use such suspensions, the investigation found. The legislation consequently passed with unanimous consent, and then-President Barack Obama signed it without question.
Both Caulkins and Wolfe noted the power pharmaceutical companies hold in forming policy and legislation, which has helped bind the DEA.
“There’s enormous influence in this industry,” Wolfe told TheDCNF.
The DEA did not respond to requests for comment.
Andrew Kerr and Grace Carr contributed to this report.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Tags: Drug Enforcement Administration, Government Accountability Office, Inspectors General
Thank You Mr Barton and the DC.
Obama DEA Caused A 'Raging Inferno of Tragic Destruction' By MishandlingThe Opioid Crisis, West Virginia AG Says
Tim PearceEnergy Reporter
8:18 PM 05/06/2018
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey filed a formal document in support of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) proposal that would limit opioid manufacturers to producing only enough to fill legitimate medical need.
The DEA proposal is a direct response to a lawsuit Morrisey filed against the agency in December 2017, pushing the agency to review how it determines drug quotas — the amount of opioids manufactures are allowed to produce to meet market demand.
Morrisey, a Republican, blasted the Obama administration for constructing the current process of setting drug quotas and using metrics and methods that inflate opioid production far above the medical need. Extra opioids are sold on the black market and end up in the hands of addicts largely living in depressed communities, according to Morrisey’s formal demand of support.
“The Obama DEA’s broken quota system resulted in unconstrained and unvalidated increases each year for the past decade that fueled the drug epidemic,” Morrisey wrote. “It is as if the Obama DEA soaked our nation with gasoline that puddled and pooled in vulnerable communities where rampant criminal and negligent conduct ignited this dangerous excess opioid supply into a raging inferno of tragic destruction and death.”
The DEA’s proposal overhauls how drug quotas are determined.
Rather than relying solely on industry input, the DEA would set drug quotas using input from states and other federal agencies as well. The new quota will also account for the number of opioids flowing into the black market. Finally, states will have the ability to call administrative hearing in Washington to show evidence of excess opioids and drug abuse.
The DEA proposal is a huge victory for Morrisey, whose state is one the opioid crisis has hit hardest.
“The excess narcotics supply naturally flowed to the devastated coal fields of West Virginia and other communities that were hardest hit by the recession,” Attorney General Morrisey wrote. “As every West Virginian now knows, next came overdoses, recoveries, and overdoses where no recovery was possible. All of this was made possible because of a broken quota system that failed to protect the public from euphoria producing drugs that also had the power to kill.”
Thank You Mr Pierce and the DC.
8:18 PM 05/06/2018
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey filed a formal document in support of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) proposal that would limit opioid manufacturers to producing only enough to fill legitimate medical need. The DEA proposal is a direct response to a lawsuit Morrisey filed against the agency in December 2017, pushing the agency to review how it determines drug quotas — the amount of opioids manufactures are allowed to produce to meet market demand.
Morrisey, a Republican, blasted the Obama administration for constructing the current process of setting drug quotas and using metrics and methods that inflate opioid production far above the medical need. Extra opioids are sold on the black market and end up in the hands of addicts largely living in depressed communities, according to Morrisey’s formal demand of support.
“The Obama DEA’s broken quota system resulted in unconstrained and unvalidated increases each year for the past decade that fueled the drug epidemic,” Morrisey wrote. “It is as if the Obama DEA soaked our nation with gasoline that puddled and pooled in vulnerable communities where rampant criminal and negligent conduct ignited this dangerous excess opioid supply into a raging inferno of tragic destruction and death.”
The DEA’s proposal overhauls how drug quotas are determined.
Rather than relying solely on industry input, the DEA would set drug quotas using input from states and other federal agencies as well. The new quota will also account for the number of opioids flowing into the black market. Finally, states will have the ability to call administrative hearing in Washington to show evidence of excess opioids and drug abuse.
The DEA proposal is a huge victory for Morrisey, whose state is one the opioid crisis has hit hardest.
“The excess narcotics supply naturally flowed to the devastated coal fields of West Virginia and other communities that were hardest hit by the recession,” Attorney General Morrisey wrote. “As every West Virginian now knows, next came overdoses, recoveries, and overdoses where no recovery was possible. All of this was made possible because of a broken quota system that failed to protect the public from euphoria producing drugs that also had the power to kill.”
Thank You Mr Pierce and the DC.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Sessions Highlights Victims of Drug Abuse In Opioid Plagued Montana
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4, 28, 2018
Criminal violations related to meth and heroin are skyrocketing across Montana, claiming adult and youth victims alike, due to the national addiction scourge plaguing America.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke in Montana Friday to law enforcement about the continued growth of the opioid epidemic, which killed more than 64,000 Americans in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Department of Justice, according to Sessions, will cut opioid prescriptions by one-third over the next three years to combat the crisis, in addition to cracking down on street dealers and national traffickers, reported KTVH.
Sessions also highlighted the many victims of drug addiction in Montana, including the youngest and most vulnerable members of society. He mentioned the story of 13-month-old Kenzley Olson, who was beaten to death by a woman on meth in 2016.
“That includes Natalie Dietrich, a student at Montana State, who was given a synthetic opioid at a concert in Bozeman,” Sessions said Friday, according to KTVH. “She was an economics student, she had a promising life ahead of her. But now that’s a future we will never see.”
Opioid overdose made up a staggering 66 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2016, surpassing the annual number of lives lost to breast cancer. Deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl, a painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, experienced a particularly dramatic increase, more than doubling from 9,580 lives in 2015 to 19,413 lives in 2016.
“There can be no doubt, really, that this is the deadliest drug crisis in our nation’s history,” said Sessions, according to KTVH. “We had a lot of drugs in the 70s and 80s but nothing like the death dealing drugs we have today. Meth violations in this state rose by more than 400 percent between 2010 and 2015. Meanwhile, heroin violations increased 1,500 percent.”
The epidemic is contributing to declining life expectancy in the U.S., according to officials with the CDC. Life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2016 for the first time since an outbreak of influenza in 1962 and 1963.
Addiction experts fear the death toll is likely higher than the official statistics shows, pointing to research suggesting federal data may be undercounting opioid deaths by as much as 20 percent.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Sessions Announces Indictments Tied To Massive Chinese Fentanyl Network
Steve BirrVice Reporter
2:16 PM 04/28/2018
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced indictments Friday related to an international fentanyl network operated by fugitive Chinese nationals.
Speaking in Fargo, North Dakota, Sessions revealed charges against ten defendants for their role in trafficking synthetic opioids linked to several overdose deaths in the U.S. The charges stem from a joint law enforcement investigation dubbed “Operation Denial,” which began following the overdose death of an 18-year-old man in Grand Forks, North Dakota, reported KVRR.
Three of the 10 defendants are in custody in the U.S., however, the rest remain fugitives. The group faces charges of drug distribution and importation resulting in death, and money laundering.
“They and their co–conspirators allegedly shipped fentanyl and fentanyl analogues from China through the mail and it killed people, killed people, in North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, and Grand Forks,” Sessions said at a press conference addressing law enforcement Friday. “They used the internet, about 30 different aliases, cryptocurrencies, offshore accounts. Each one of you played critical roles in the formation from virtually the beginning of the investigation which has become an international success story.”
The announcement from Sessions came after the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Jian Zhang, owner of a chemical company based in China, and four financial associates from China who worked directly for Zhang.
The five Chinese nationals allegedly used Zhang’s company, Zaron Bio-Tech, to import large amounts of fentanyl and even more powerful synthetic analogs of fentanyl.
Authorities previously unsealed an indictment of Zhang on Oct. 17 in the District of North Dakota, which charged him with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug distribution and importation resulting in death, and money laundering. Zhang and his associates are accused of importing and distributing hundreds of bags of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid roughly 30 to 50 times more powerful than pure heroin, which resulted in the deaths of at least four Americans and serious injury of five others.
The announcement from the Treasury Department names Na Chu, Yeyou Chu, Cuiying Liu, and Keping Zhang as co-conspirators in the drug ring. The sanctions effectively freeze any financial assets these individuals hold in the U.S.
Large quantities of narcotics continue to infiltrate the U.S. due to the relentless efforts of traffickers. However, the Department of Justice under Sessions is gaining ground against drug movers taking advantage of America’s opioid scourge. Federal officials recently scored a major victory against narcotics traffickers during an investigation of a distribution network in West Virginia, confiscating enough fentanyl to kill a quarter million Americans.
Drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You AG Sessions, Mr Birr and the DC.
2:16 PM 04/28/2018
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced indictments Friday related to an international fentanyl network operated by fugitive Chinese nationals.
Speaking in Fargo, North Dakota, Sessions revealed charges against ten defendants for their role in trafficking synthetic opioids linked to several overdose deaths in the U.S. The charges stem from a joint law enforcement investigation dubbed “Operation Denial,” which began following the overdose death of an 18-year-old man in Grand Forks, North Dakota, reported KVRR.
Three of the 10 defendants are in custody in the U.S., however, the rest remain fugitives. The group faces charges of drug distribution and importation resulting in death, and money laundering.
“They and their co–conspirators allegedly shipped fentanyl and fentanyl analogues from China through the mail and it killed people, killed people, in North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, and Grand Forks,” Sessions said at a press conference addressing law enforcement Friday. “They used the internet, about 30 different aliases, cryptocurrencies, offshore accounts. Each one of you played critical roles in the formation from virtually the beginning of the investigation which has become an international success story.”
The announcement from Sessions came after the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Jian Zhang, owner of a chemical company based in China, and four financial associates from China who worked directly for Zhang.
The five Chinese nationals allegedly used Zhang’s company, Zaron Bio-Tech, to import large amounts of fentanyl and even more powerful synthetic analogs of fentanyl.
Authorities previously unsealed an indictment of Zhang on Oct. 17 in the District of North Dakota, which charged him with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug distribution and importation resulting in death, and money laundering. Zhang and his associates are accused of importing and distributing hundreds of bags of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid roughly 30 to 50 times more powerful than pure heroin, which resulted in the deaths of at least four Americans and serious injury of five others.
The announcement from the Treasury Department names Na Chu, Yeyou Chu, Cuiying Liu, and Keping Zhang as co-conspirators in the drug ring. The sanctions effectively freeze any financial assets these individuals hold in the U.S.
Large quantities of narcotics continue to infiltrate the U.S. due to the relentless efforts of traffickers. However, the Department of Justice under Sessions is gaining ground against drug movers taking advantage of America’s opioid scourge. Federal officials recently scored a major victory against narcotics traffickers during an investigation of a distribution network in West Virginia, confiscating enough fentanyl to kill a quarter million Americans.
Drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You AG Sessions, Mr Birr and the DC.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Police Warnings Keep Coming For Deadly Fentanyl Laced Cocaine
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
2:47 PM 03/03/2018
Authorities in Vermont are warning the public about the rapidly increasing threat from cocaine mixed with the deadly opioid fentanyl, which is killing unsuspecting users across the state.
Officials with the Barre Police Department issued a public alert due to a rash of overdoses in the last week, one of which proved fatal. Police say they increasingly do not know what to tell the public to specifically look out for due to the prevalence of fentanyl, which is making all drug batches deadlier, reports WCAX.
The warning is intended for anyone in the area consuming drugs, not just opioid users. Officials say people using cocaine are at particular risk of being exposed to a fatal dose of fentanyl.
“The change recently has been that fentanyl is showing up more often in cocaine,” said Deborah Hopkins, the operations director for Vermont Substance Abuse Services, according to WCAX.
Health officials in Vermont are only the latest to sound the alarm on the threat posed by the infiltration of fentanyl across drug supplies. The Ohio Department of Health recently asked medical professionals and first responders to start using the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan for any situation where a person has overdosed on drugs in case fentanyl is involved.
Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is blamed as the primary driver of the addiction crisis and rising overdose deaths. Deaths related to cocaine and fentanyl in Ohio recently jumped by 37 percent, claiming 850 lives in 2017, while deaths related to mixtures of fentanyl and methamphetamine increased by 142 percent.
Authorities fear that because cocaine is more widely used as a social drug than a substance like heroin, many users are unaware of the fatal risks even a small amount of the drug now carries.
“As we see this expansion of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs into the drug supply, the universe of people who might be at risk is much broader,” Christopher Jones, director of the National Mental Health and Substance Abuse Police Laboratory at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, recently told Philly.com. “That’s why you see the really significant spikes in overdose deaths since 2015.”
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates cocaine-overdose deaths increased from roughly 4,000 in 2009 to more than 6,700 in 2015. Officials predict cocaine-overdose deaths are about to explode in 2017 to nearly 11,000.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein previously warned it takes only 2 milligrams of fentanyl, “the equivalent of a few grains of table salt,” to cause a fatal overdose.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
2:47 PM 03/03/2018
Authorities in Vermont are warning the public about the rapidly increasing threat from cocaine mixed with the deadly opioid fentanyl, which is killing unsuspecting users across the state.
Officials with the Barre Police Department issued a public alert due to a rash of overdoses in the last week, one of which proved fatal. Police say they increasingly do not know what to tell the public to specifically look out for due to the prevalence of fentanyl, which is making all drug batches deadlier, reports WCAX.
The warning is intended for anyone in the area consuming drugs, not just opioid users. Officials say people using cocaine are at particular risk of being exposed to a fatal dose of fentanyl.
“The change recently has been that fentanyl is showing up more often in cocaine,” said Deborah Hopkins, the operations director for Vermont Substance Abuse Services, according to WCAX.
Health officials in Vermont are only the latest to sound the alarm on the threat posed by the infiltration of fentanyl across drug supplies. The Ohio Department of Health recently asked medical professionals and first responders to start using the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan for any situation where a person has overdosed on drugs in case fentanyl is involved.
Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is blamed as the primary driver of the addiction crisis and rising overdose deaths. Deaths related to cocaine and fentanyl in Ohio recently jumped by 37 percent, claiming 850 lives in 2017, while deaths related to mixtures of fentanyl and methamphetamine increased by 142 percent.
Authorities fear that because cocaine is more widely used as a social drug than a substance like heroin, many users are unaware of the fatal risks even a small amount of the drug now carries.
“As we see this expansion of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs into the drug supply, the universe of people who might be at risk is much broader,” Christopher Jones, director of the National Mental Health and Substance Abuse Police Laboratory at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, recently told Philly.com. “That’s why you see the really significant spikes in overdose deaths since 2015.”
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates cocaine-overdose deaths increased from roughly 4,000 in 2009 to more than 6,700 in 2015. Officials predict cocaine-overdose deaths are about to explode in 2017 to nearly 11,000.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein previously warned it takes only 2 milligrams of fentanyl, “the equivalent of a few grains of table salt,” to cause a fatal overdose.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Police Find Man Accused of Patient Overdose After Sneaking Heroin Into Hospital
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
7:08 PM 03/02/2018
A man wanted by police for allegedly sneaking heroin into a Virginia hospital room and causing an overdose was arrested in Alexandria Wednesday.
Officers with the Alexandria Police Department said 25-year-old Michael “Flip” Filipowicz turned himself into custody for the crime, which occurred in the summer of 2017. Filipowicz is charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin, along with his partner, 20-year-old Dana Gotliffe, who was already in police custody, reports WTVR.
Officials in Alexandria released details Feb. 20 concerning an unidentified 24-year-old man who overdosed twice within 24 hours last summer, the second time from a hospital bed he was recovering in.
First responders saved the man’s life by administering the overdose reversal drug Narcan at the scene of his first overdose, subsequently taking the man to an area hospital to recover.
Filipowicz and Gotliffe followed the man to the hospital and later slipped into his room with a supply of heroin, which they allegedly sold to the patient.
“Within 24 hours, we received another call, where the person had overdosed again, within the hospital,” Alexandria Deputy Police Chief David Huchler told NBC Washington.
Filipowicz allegedly signed himself in as a guest of the unidentified man in order to transport the drugs to the hospital room.
“Our first step isn’t to charge the person that has overdosed,” Huchler told NBC Washington. “We’re looking to get to the suppliers and the dealers so that we can have an impact on the flow of drugs within the city.”
Drug overdoses, fueled by substances like heroin, are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse released Sept. 7 paints a grim outlook for the future of the drug crisis ravaging American communities.
The study predicts the addiction epidemic in America will continue to deteriorate, pushing drug deaths to an estimated 71,600 in 2017. If the estimates prove accurate, 2017 will be the second year in a row drug deaths surpass U.S. casualties from the Vietnam War.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
7:08 PM 03/02/2018
A man wanted by police for allegedly sneaking heroin into a Virginia hospital room and causing an overdose was arrested in Alexandria Wednesday.
Officers with the Alexandria Police Department said 25-year-old Michael “Flip” Filipowicz turned himself into custody for the crime, which occurred in the summer of 2017. Filipowicz is charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin, along with his partner, 20-year-old Dana Gotliffe, who was already in police custody, reports WTVR.
Officials in Alexandria released details Feb. 20 concerning an unidentified 24-year-old man who overdosed twice within 24 hours last summer, the second time from a hospital bed he was recovering in.
First responders saved the man’s life by administering the overdose reversal drug Narcan at the scene of his first overdose, subsequently taking the man to an area hospital to recover.
Filipowicz and Gotliffe followed the man to the hospital and later slipped into his room with a supply of heroin, which they allegedly sold to the patient.
“Within 24 hours, we received another call, where the person had overdosed again, within the hospital,” Alexandria Deputy Police Chief David Huchler told NBC Washington.
Filipowicz allegedly signed himself in as a guest of the unidentified man in order to transport the drugs to the hospital room.
“Our first step isn’t to charge the person that has overdosed,” Huchler told NBC Washington. “We’re looking to get to the suppliers and the dealers so that we can have an impact on the flow of drugs within the city.”
Drug overdoses, fueled by substances like heroin, are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse released Sept. 7 paints a grim outlook for the future of the drug crisis ravaging American communities.
The study predicts the addiction epidemic in America will continue to deteriorate, pushing drug deaths to an estimated 71,600 in 2017. If the estimates prove accurate, 2017 will be the second year in a row drug deaths surpass U.S. casualties from the Vietnam War.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
FDA Asks Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, To Restrict Anti Diarrheal Meds Used By Opioid Addicts
washington examiner
Kimberly Leonard | Mar 1, 2018, 7:12 PM
The Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to online retail giants Thursday asking them to limit the sale of an over-the-counter, anti-diarrheal medicine that drug users are taking to mimic a euphoric high from opioids.
In a letter to Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, and Jet, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb noted that a growing number of people are taking the drug loperamide in high doses, which can result in serious heart problems or death.
The FDA has become aware that people are taking these high amounts of the drug, a caplet often known by its brand-name Imodium A-D, as an alternative to an opioid, both to manage symptoms of withdrawal and to get high. Imodium is often known in drug circles as the "poor man's methadone." Methadone is often prescribed by doctors to treat people with addictions to heroin or prescription painkillers.
Drug users are able to obtain large quantities of loperamide online. Gottlieb noted in his letter that retailers were selling it in bundled amounts that could result in customers obtaining 1,200 tablets in a single purchase.
Gottlieb asked the retailers to voluntarily cease selling more than one package at a time and to include warning labels on their websites.
read more
Kimberly Leonard | Mar 1, 2018, 7:12 PM
The Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to online retail giants Thursday asking them to limit the sale of an over-the-counter, anti-diarrheal medicine that drug users are taking to mimic a euphoric high from opioids.
In a letter to Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, and Jet, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb noted that a growing number of people are taking the drug loperamide in high doses, which can result in serious heart problems or death.
The FDA has become aware that people are taking these high amounts of the drug, a caplet often known by its brand-name Imodium A-D, as an alternative to an opioid, both to manage symptoms of withdrawal and to get high. Imodium is often known in drug circles as the "poor man's methadone." Methadone is often prescribed by doctors to treat people with addictions to heroin or prescription painkillers.
Drug users are able to obtain large quantities of loperamide online. Gottlieb noted in his letter that retailers were selling it in bundled amounts that could result in customers obtaining 1,200 tablets in a single purchase.
Gottlieb asked the retailers to voluntarily cease selling more than one package at a time and to include warning labels on their websites.
read more
Thursday, March 1, 2018
WV Quietly Sued DEA Over Opioids And Scored A Major Victory
dailycaller
Ethan Barton Investigative Reporter
5:50 PM 03/01/2018
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sued the Drug Enforcement Agency in December
Morrisey hopes for three crucial changes to the DEA’s quota determination
More than 200,000 Americans across the nation died from prescription opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2016
Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to review how it determines the number of opioid pills allowed on the market in response to a lawsuit West Virginia filed against in the agency, the state’s attorney general announced Thursday.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sued the DEA in December to compel the agency to change how it determines drug quotas, particularly to push the agency to decrease its reliance on pharmaceutical companies’ sales estimates.
“I direct the DEA to evaluate and consider whether or not to amend its regulations governing the aggregate production quota where appropriate as expeditiously as practicable, including through a potential interim final rule,” Sessions said in a statement Thursday.
Morrisey, a Republican, hopes for three crucial changes to the DEA’s quota determination: reducing the reliance on market demand estimates and instead seeking input from states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); taking into account the amount of medications diverted to the black market when considering quotas; and giving state governments the ability to hold hearings to provide evidence of excess opioid supplies.
“Today, we believe we will begin seeing a major change to the failed drug supply system and federal government policies that have fueled the opioid epidemic and helped lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans nationwide,” Morrisey said in a statement.
“For far too long, going back over the past decade and longer, the DEA maintained drug quota regulations that were fatal and dangerously flawed,” he continued.
West Virginia is among the hardest hit in the opioid epidemic, with 52.5 deaths per 100,000 people – more than any other state, according to Morrisey.
Additionally, pharmaceutical distributors flooded one West Virginia town with a population of less than 3,000 with nearly 21 million opioid pills.
More than 200,000 Americans across the nation died from prescription opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, 80 percent of heroin users began their addiction with prescription opioids, a recent study shows.
The DEA’s quota system relies on the pharmaceutical industry’s estimates of how many drugs can be sold, rather than legitimate demands and need, to determine how many medications are allowed on the market, according to Morrisey.
“The DEA quota program is completely broken because it confuses market demand for dangerous narcotics with the amount of legitimate medical need,” Morrisey said. “The DEA effectively helps determine how many drugs can be manufactured based upon how many drugs pharmaceutical companies can sell.”
“This quota process resulted in the unconstrained, unvalidated, and deadly increases each year for the past decade that helped fuel the drug epidemic and helped cause senseless death,” he continued, calling the DEA’s actions “beyond reprehensible” and “deadly.”
Morrisey began trying to alter the quota system during former President Barack Obama’s presidency, but his efforts “were originally stymied, as the Obama-era DEA was clearly asleep at the switch and unwilling to recognize the fatal nature of this failed system,” the attorney general said.
He also asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals – where his case was filed – to put his suit on hold while the DEA finalizes any rule changes.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Thank You Mr Barton and the DC.
Ethan Barton Investigative Reporter
5:50 PM 03/01/2018
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sued the Drug Enforcement Agency in December
Morrisey hopes for three crucial changes to the DEA’s quota determination
More than 200,000 Americans across the nation died from prescription opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2016
Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to review how it determines the number of opioid pills allowed on the market in response to a lawsuit West Virginia filed against in the agency, the state’s attorney general announced Thursday.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sued the DEA in December to compel the agency to change how it determines drug quotas, particularly to push the agency to decrease its reliance on pharmaceutical companies’ sales estimates.
“I direct the DEA to evaluate and consider whether or not to amend its regulations governing the aggregate production quota where appropriate as expeditiously as practicable, including through a potential interim final rule,” Sessions said in a statement Thursday.
Morrisey, a Republican, hopes for three crucial changes to the DEA’s quota determination: reducing the reliance on market demand estimates and instead seeking input from states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); taking into account the amount of medications diverted to the black market when considering quotas; and giving state governments the ability to hold hearings to provide evidence of excess opioid supplies.
“Today, we believe we will begin seeing a major change to the failed drug supply system and federal government policies that have fueled the opioid epidemic and helped lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans nationwide,” Morrisey said in a statement.
“For far too long, going back over the past decade and longer, the DEA maintained drug quota regulations that were fatal and dangerously flawed,” he continued.
West Virginia is among the hardest hit in the opioid epidemic, with 52.5 deaths per 100,000 people – more than any other state, according to Morrisey.
Additionally, pharmaceutical distributors flooded one West Virginia town with a population of less than 3,000 with nearly 21 million opioid pills.
More than 200,000 Americans across the nation died from prescription opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, 80 percent of heroin users began their addiction with prescription opioids, a recent study shows.
The DEA’s quota system relies on the pharmaceutical industry’s estimates of how many drugs can be sold, rather than legitimate demands and need, to determine how many medications are allowed on the market, according to Morrisey.
“The DEA quota program is completely broken because it confuses market demand for dangerous narcotics with the amount of legitimate medical need,” Morrisey said. “The DEA effectively helps determine how many drugs can be manufactured based upon how many drugs pharmaceutical companies can sell.”
“This quota process resulted in the unconstrained, unvalidated, and deadly increases each year for the past decade that helped fuel the drug epidemic and helped cause senseless death,” he continued, calling the DEA’s actions “beyond reprehensible” and “deadly.”
Morrisey began trying to alter the quota system during former President Barack Obama’s presidency, but his efforts “were originally stymied, as the Obama-era DEA was clearly asleep at the switch and unwilling to recognize the fatal nature of this failed system,” the attorney general said.
He also asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals – where his case was filed – to put his suit on hold while the DEA finalizes any rule changes.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Thank You Mr Barton and the DC.
Justice Dept Backs States Suing Opioid Makers Over 'Illegal Activity'
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
7:35 PM 02/28/2018
The Department of Justice is creating a new task force to investigate opioid manufacturers and distributors, it will weigh in on state lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday he has directed the task force to “examine existing state and local government lawsuits against opioid manufacturers to determine if we can be of assistance.”
Officials across the country are currently suing the largest opioid manufacturers for their alleged “false, deceptive, and unfair” marketing schemes the Justice Department claims ignited the addiction epidemic, CNBC reported.
Sessions also said officials with the Justice Department will file a statement of interests in a multi-district legal action involving hundreds of lawsuits pinning blame on drugmakers for the opioid crisis.
“The federal government has borne substantial costs as a result of the opioid crisis,” Sessions said in remarks Tuesday. “The hard-working taxpayers of this country deserve to be compensated by those whose illegal activity contributed to those costs. And we will go to court to ensure that the American people receive the compensation they deserve.”
Much of the Justice Department’s opioid crisis response has focused on drug traffickers, overprescribing doctors and people committing opioid-related insurance fraud. Officials announced Jan. 1 they were making new resources available to the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit that draws on data from Medicaid, Medicare and local coroner reports to root out doctors profiting off the national opioid epidemic.
Sessions announced Aug. 2 the appointment of 12 veteran prosecutors to “focus solely” on targeting doctors and other medical providers taking advantage of widespread addiction to opioids in the U.S. The Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit is operating in 12 regions the opioid epidemic hit the hardest, including Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio.
Drug overdose deaths surged in 2016 by 21 percent, claiming more than 64,000 lives nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The primary drive for the increase is opioids, which claimed 42,249 lives in 2016 — a 28 percent increase over the roughly 33,000 lives lost to opioids in 2015.
Deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller roughly 50-to-100 times more powerful than morphine, experienced a particularly dramatic increase — more than doubling from 9,580 lives in 2015 to 19,413 lives in 2016.
The epidemic is contributing to declining life expectancy in the U.S., officials say. Said span dropped for the second consecutive year in 2016 for the first time since the 1962 and 1963 influenza outbreaks.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
7:35 PM 02/28/2018
The Department of Justice is creating a new task force to investigate opioid manufacturers and distributors, it will weigh in on state lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday he has directed the task force to “examine existing state and local government lawsuits against opioid manufacturers to determine if we can be of assistance.”
Officials across the country are currently suing the largest opioid manufacturers for their alleged “false, deceptive, and unfair” marketing schemes the Justice Department claims ignited the addiction epidemic, CNBC reported.
Sessions also said officials with the Justice Department will file a statement of interests in a multi-district legal action involving hundreds of lawsuits pinning blame on drugmakers for the opioid crisis.
“The federal government has borne substantial costs as a result of the opioid crisis,” Sessions said in remarks Tuesday. “The hard-working taxpayers of this country deserve to be compensated by those whose illegal activity contributed to those costs. And we will go to court to ensure that the American people receive the compensation they deserve.”
Much of the Justice Department’s opioid crisis response has focused on drug traffickers, overprescribing doctors and people committing opioid-related insurance fraud. Officials announced Jan. 1 they were making new resources available to the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit that draws on data from Medicaid, Medicare and local coroner reports to root out doctors profiting off the national opioid epidemic.
Sessions announced Aug. 2 the appointment of 12 veteran prosecutors to “focus solely” on targeting doctors and other medical providers taking advantage of widespread addiction to opioids in the U.S. The Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit is operating in 12 regions the opioid epidemic hit the hardest, including Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio.
Drug overdose deaths surged in 2016 by 21 percent, claiming more than 64,000 lives nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The primary drive for the increase is opioids, which claimed 42,249 lives in 2016 — a 28 percent increase over the roughly 33,000 lives lost to opioids in 2015.
Deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller roughly 50-to-100 times more powerful than morphine, experienced a particularly dramatic increase — more than doubling from 9,580 lives in 2015 to 19,413 lives in 2016.
The epidemic is contributing to declining life expectancy in the U.S., officials say. Said span dropped for the second consecutive year in 2016 for the first time since the 1962 and 1963 influenza outbreaks.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Cocaine Becoming Deadlier As Fentanyl Expands Reach
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
5:40 PM 02/23/2018
Overdose deaths linked to cocaine are rapidly rising in areas hit hard by the opioid epidemic as the deadly painkiller fentanyl infiltrates broader drug supplies.
Officials with the Ohio Department of Health are asking medical professionals and first responders to start using the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan for any situation where a person has overdosed on drugs in case fentanyl is involved. Dealers are increasingly cutting the substances into non-opioid drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine, reports Canton Rep.
Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is blamed as the primary driver of the addiction crisis and rising overdose deaths. Deaths related to cocaine and fentanyl in Ohio recently jumped by 37 percent, claiming 850 lives in 2017, while deaths related to mixtures of fentanyl and methamphetamine increased by 142 percent.
Authorities fear that because cocaine is more widely used as a social drug than a substance like heroin, many users are unaware of the fatal risks even a small amount of the drug now carries.
“As we see this expansion of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs into the drug supply, the universe of people who might be at risk is much broader,” Christopher Jones, director of the National Mental Health and Substance Abuse Police Laboratory at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, recently told Philly.com. “That’s why you see the really significant spikes in overdose deaths since 2015.”
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC estimates cocaine-overdose deaths increased from roughly 4,000 in 2009 to more than 6,700 in 2015. Officials predict cocaine-overdose deaths are about to explode in 2017 to nearly 11,000. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein previously warned it takes only 2 milligrams of fentanyl, “the equivalent of a few grains of table salt,” to cause a fatal overdose.
Nationally, drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
5:40 PM 02/23/2018
Overdose deaths linked to cocaine are rapidly rising in areas hit hard by the opioid epidemic as the deadly painkiller fentanyl infiltrates broader drug supplies.
Officials with the Ohio Department of Health are asking medical professionals and first responders to start using the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan for any situation where a person has overdosed on drugs in case fentanyl is involved. Dealers are increasingly cutting the substances into non-opioid drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine, reports Canton Rep.
Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is blamed as the primary driver of the addiction crisis and rising overdose deaths. Deaths related to cocaine and fentanyl in Ohio recently jumped by 37 percent, claiming 850 lives in 2017, while deaths related to mixtures of fentanyl and methamphetamine increased by 142 percent.
Authorities fear that because cocaine is more widely used as a social drug than a substance like heroin, many users are unaware of the fatal risks even a small amount of the drug now carries.
“As we see this expansion of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs into the drug supply, the universe of people who might be at risk is much broader,” Christopher Jones, director of the National Mental Health and Substance Abuse Police Laboratory at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, recently told Philly.com. “That’s why you see the really significant spikes in overdose deaths since 2015.”
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC estimates cocaine-overdose deaths increased from roughly 4,000 in 2009 to more than 6,700 in 2015. Officials predict cocaine-overdose deaths are about to explode in 2017 to nearly 11,000. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein previously warned it takes only 2 milligrams of fentanyl, “the equivalent of a few grains of table salt,” to cause a fatal overdose.
Nationally, drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Friday, February 23, 2018
Seniors Found Wandering Around High On Heroin At Assisted Living Facility
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4:54 PM 02/22/2018
Two elderly patients at an assisted living facility in Pennsylvania were recently cited after staff found them wandering around a public area high on heroin.
Police responded to a call at the Elderwood Senior Living Center in Lancaster County after the pair “were observed under the influence of heroin in a public area, disturbing others.” The responding officer charged 79-year-old Margery Cook and 69-year-old Jay Ellis Epler with public drunkenness over the bizarre incident, reports Trib Live.
Police do not know how the seniors obtained the heroin, but note that opioid addiction is prevalent throughout Pennsylvania. Officials say the case shows the pervasive nature of the opioid epidemic, which is impacting all age groups across the socioeconomic spectrum.
The addiction crisis continues to wreak havoc in Pennsylvania, which lost 4,642 residents to drug overdoses in 2016. Officials estimate that roughly 3,900 of the deaths were related to opioids.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Officials say the epidemic is contributing to declining life expectancy in the U.S. Life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2016 for the first time since an outbreak of influenza in 1962 and 1963.
Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse released Sept. 7 paints a grim outlook for the future of the drug crisis ravaging American communities.
The study predicts the addiction epidemic in America will continue to deteriorate, pushing drug deaths to an estimated 71,600 in 2017. If the estimates prove accurate, 2017 will be the second year in a row drug deaths surpass U.S. casualties from the Vietnam War.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4:54 PM 02/22/2018
Two elderly patients at an assisted living facility in Pennsylvania were recently cited after staff found them wandering around a public area high on heroin.
Police responded to a call at the Elderwood Senior Living Center in Lancaster County after the pair “were observed under the influence of heroin in a public area, disturbing others.” The responding officer charged 79-year-old Margery Cook and 69-year-old Jay Ellis Epler with public drunkenness over the bizarre incident, reports Trib Live.
Police do not know how the seniors obtained the heroin, but note that opioid addiction is prevalent throughout Pennsylvania. Officials say the case shows the pervasive nature of the opioid epidemic, which is impacting all age groups across the socioeconomic spectrum.
The addiction crisis continues to wreak havoc in Pennsylvania, which lost 4,642 residents to drug overdoses in 2016. Officials estimate that roughly 3,900 of the deaths were related to opioids.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Officials say the epidemic is contributing to declining life expectancy in the U.S. Life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2016 for the first time since an outbreak of influenza in 1962 and 1963.
Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse released Sept. 7 paints a grim outlook for the future of the drug crisis ravaging American communities.
The study predicts the addiction epidemic in America will continue to deteriorate, pushing drug deaths to an estimated 71,600 in 2017. If the estimates prove accurate, 2017 will be the second year in a row drug deaths surpass U.S. casualties from the Vietnam War.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Friday, February 16, 2018
Deaths Triple From Deadly Combination of Anti-Anxiety Pills and Opioids
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
1:03 PM 02/16/2018
Deaths attributed to a combination of anti-anxiety medication and opioid painkillers are rising rapidly in the Chicago area, claiming hundreds of lives in 2017.
Officials in Cook County, Ill., say addiction to benzodiazepine medications like Xanax, Valium and Klonopin appear to be increasing in the region. Benzodiazepines are a class of medication commonly prescribed to treat anxiety conditions that can slow a user’s breathing, particularly when mixed with an opioid medication. A youth rehab network run by Gateway says roughly one in four patients now have abuse problems with a benzodiazepine, up from only one in 10 in 2013, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Cook County Medical Examiner Ponni Arunkumar says the deadly mixture of prescription opioids and medications like Xanax are causing deaths attributed to benzodiazepines to spike at an alarming pace. Deaths from the anti-anxiety drugs have tripled in the region since 2015, claiming 333 lives last year.
“This has taken the place of ecstasy in the party culture for some people,” Karen Wolownik Albert, executive director of Gateway in Lake County, told the Chicago Tribune. “Because it’s a prescription drug, people can rationalize it. It doesn’t fit into people’s concept of what drug abuse looks like.”
Officials warn that many people who are prescribed both opioids and benzodiazepines may be unaware of the danger the medications pose when taken together.
Federal drug agents also recently issued a warning about rising overdose deaths, particularly among young adults and teens, from counterfeit Xanax pills cut with the potent opioid fentanyl.
Officials say the anti-anxiety medications, which are often glorified in music and on social media, are increasing in popularity among teens and young adults in recent years. Rapper Lil Peep, who often rapped about Xanax, fatally overdosed on a combination of Xanax and fentanyl before a November concert in Arizona.
Fentanyl is a synthetic painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine which is pouring into the country across the border and through the mail from China. The substance is fueling more overdose deaths as drug dealers increasingly cut the substance into heroin, cocaine and pill supplies to maximize profits.
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the deadliest substance in the U.S. in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Follow Steve on Twitter
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
1:03 PM 02/16/2018
Deaths attributed to a combination of anti-anxiety medication and opioid painkillers are rising rapidly in the Chicago area, claiming hundreds of lives in 2017.
Officials in Cook County, Ill., say addiction to benzodiazepine medications like Xanax, Valium and Klonopin appear to be increasing in the region. Benzodiazepines are a class of medication commonly prescribed to treat anxiety conditions that can slow a user’s breathing, particularly when mixed with an opioid medication. A youth rehab network run by Gateway says roughly one in four patients now have abuse problems with a benzodiazepine, up from only one in 10 in 2013, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Cook County Medical Examiner Ponni Arunkumar says the deadly mixture of prescription opioids and medications like Xanax are causing deaths attributed to benzodiazepines to spike at an alarming pace. Deaths from the anti-anxiety drugs have tripled in the region since 2015, claiming 333 lives last year.
“This has taken the place of ecstasy in the party culture for some people,” Karen Wolownik Albert, executive director of Gateway in Lake County, told the Chicago Tribune. “Because it’s a prescription drug, people can rationalize it. It doesn’t fit into people’s concept of what drug abuse looks like.”
Officials warn that many people who are prescribed both opioids and benzodiazepines may be unaware of the danger the medications pose when taken together.
Federal drug agents also recently issued a warning about rising overdose deaths, particularly among young adults and teens, from counterfeit Xanax pills cut with the potent opioid fentanyl.
Officials say the anti-anxiety medications, which are often glorified in music and on social media, are increasing in popularity among teens and young adults in recent years. Rapper Lil Peep, who often rapped about Xanax, fatally overdosed on a combination of Xanax and fentanyl before a November concert in Arizona.
Fentanyl is a synthetic painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine which is pouring into the country across the border and through the mail from China. The substance is fueling more overdose deaths as drug dealers increasingly cut the substance into heroin, cocaine and pill supplies to maximize profits.
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the deadliest substance in the U.S. in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
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Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Report: New Opioid Meds Are Encouraging Heroin Abuse
dailycaller
Ethan Barton Investigative Reporter
2:56 PM 02/06/2018
Harder-to-abuse opioid medications major pharmaceutical companies manufacture are encouraging heroin use, a study published Tuesday found.
Opioids manufactured with an abuse-deterrent formulation are designed in such a way that it prevents users from crushing and snorting the drugs, according to the Cato Institute report. But the inability to abuse such medications has led addicts to switch to more dangerous drugs, like heroin, to get their fix.
“Little evidence suggests that abuse-deterrent formulations of opioids are having the intended effect of reducing the opioid overdose death rate, and strong evidence suggests that they are contributing to the rise in heroin use and overdoses,” the report said.
“Data show that in recent years, the overdose death rate attributable to prescription opioids has stabilized, while the death rate from heroin has increased,” the report continued, noting that, for the first time, there were more overdose deaths from heroin than from prescription opioids in 2015. (RELATED: Big Pharma Accused Of Flooding Small Town With 20.8 Million Opioid Painkillers)
Users ultimately transition to heroin when abusable prescription opioids aren’t available, according to the report. (RELATED: How One Painkiller Ignited The Addiction Epidemic)
“When we combine heroin and opioid deaths together, we find no evidence that total heroin and opioid deaths fell at all after the reformulation — there appears to have been one-for-one substitution of heroin deaths for opioid deaths,” the report said.
The reformulated opioids even led to an HIV outbreak in one instance, according to the report. Abusers started injecting an opioid medication in an Indiana county after it was switched to an abuse-deterrent formulation, which resulted in 190 people testing positive for the autoimmune disease from sharing needles.
Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has encouraged manufacturers to focus on creating abuse-deterrent version of their opioids.
“The FDA should end its policy of encouraging [abuse-deterrent] opioids and particularly its goal of eliminating non-[abuse-deterrent] opioids,” the report said.
“Lawmakers should abandon efforts to require consumers to purchase coverage for costlier [abuse-deterrent] opioids and should instead allow insurers to steer medical users of these products toward cheaper, non-[abuse-deterrent] generic formulations,” it continued.
Also, reformulating opioid medications allows pharmaceutical manufacturers to extend the life of their patents, according to the report.
“The patent protections for many of the original opioid preparations have expired,” the report said. “When that occurs, competition from generic drugs reduces prices for opioids — and cuts into the profits of drug companies that first brought those drugs to market.”
Since the government is encouraging the prescription of abuse-deterrent opioids – which brand-name manufactures hold the patent on through extensions – the price of these drugs has increased, which is passed onto patients and taxpayers alike, according to the report.
“Specifically, requiring tamper-resistant properties … would have served to eliminate certain lower cost drugs from the market, increasing costs for patients and the health system, while having little to no effect in the fight against problematic opioid use,” the report said.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Thank You Mr Barton and the DC.
Ethan Barton Investigative Reporter
2:56 PM 02/06/2018
Harder-to-abuse opioid medications major pharmaceutical companies manufacture are encouraging heroin use, a study published Tuesday found.
Opioids manufactured with an abuse-deterrent formulation are designed in such a way that it prevents users from crushing and snorting the drugs, according to the Cato Institute report. But the inability to abuse such medications has led addicts to switch to more dangerous drugs, like heroin, to get their fix.
“Little evidence suggests that abuse-deterrent formulations of opioids are having the intended effect of reducing the opioid overdose death rate, and strong evidence suggests that they are contributing to the rise in heroin use and overdoses,” the report said.
“Data show that in recent years, the overdose death rate attributable to prescription opioids has stabilized, while the death rate from heroin has increased,” the report continued, noting that, for the first time, there were more overdose deaths from heroin than from prescription opioids in 2015. (RELATED: Big Pharma Accused Of Flooding Small Town With 20.8 Million Opioid Painkillers)
Users ultimately transition to heroin when abusable prescription opioids aren’t available, according to the report. (RELATED: How One Painkiller Ignited The Addiction Epidemic)
“When we combine heroin and opioid deaths together, we find no evidence that total heroin and opioid deaths fell at all after the reformulation — there appears to have been one-for-one substitution of heroin deaths for opioid deaths,” the report said.
The reformulated opioids even led to an HIV outbreak in one instance, according to the report. Abusers started injecting an opioid medication in an Indiana county after it was switched to an abuse-deterrent formulation, which resulted in 190 people testing positive for the autoimmune disease from sharing needles.
Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has encouraged manufacturers to focus on creating abuse-deterrent version of their opioids.
“The FDA should end its policy of encouraging [abuse-deterrent] opioids and particularly its goal of eliminating non-[abuse-deterrent] opioids,” the report said.
“Lawmakers should abandon efforts to require consumers to purchase coverage for costlier [abuse-deterrent] opioids and should instead allow insurers to steer medical users of these products toward cheaper, non-[abuse-deterrent] generic formulations,” it continued.
Also, reformulating opioid medications allows pharmaceutical manufacturers to extend the life of their patents, according to the report.
“The patent protections for many of the original opioid preparations have expired,” the report said. “When that occurs, competition from generic drugs reduces prices for opioids — and cuts into the profits of drug companies that first brought those drugs to market.”
Since the government is encouraging the prescription of abuse-deterrent opioids – which brand-name manufactures hold the patent on through extensions – the price of these drugs has increased, which is passed onto patients and taxpayers alike, according to the report.
“Specifically, requiring tamper-resistant properties … would have served to eliminate certain lower cost drugs from the market, increasing costs for patients and the health system, while having little to no effect in the fight against problematic opioid use,” the report said.
Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Thank You Mr Barton and the DC.
Oxycontin Makers Hit With Another Lawsuit As Alabama Joins Fight
dailycaller
Steve Birr
Vice Reporter
4:55 PM 02/07/2018
Officials in Alabama are suing the makers of the painkiller OxyContin, accusing the company of deceiving the public about the risks of opioids in pursuit of profits.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed the lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, which seeks to hold Purdue Pharma liable for the economic damage of the opioid epidemic in the state. Hundreds of residents in Alabama die from opioid-related overdoses each year, leading to a drop in the overall life expectancy in the state, reports NPR.
Marshall argues that the early marketing practices of Purdue Pharma surrounding their drug OxyContin opened the doors for the pharmaceutical industry to push overprescribing of painkillers for chronic pain patients.
“The opioid epidemic has devastated Alabama families, leaving a trail of addiction and death winding though every community of this state,” Marshall said Tuesday in a statement. “It will take years to undo the damage but an important first step we must take is to hold the parties responsible for this epidemic legally liable for the destruction they have unleashed upon our citizens.”
Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in 2007 to felony charges for false marketing of OxyContin and paid $635 million as a result. The company overstated how long the effects of the medication lasted and severely downplayed the addiction risks of the drug. Three executives also pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but dodged prison time.
Purdue Pharma denies allegations of complicity in the opioid epidemic and says it is committed to curbing rates of opioid abuse.
“We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis and we are dedicated to being part of the solution,” a spokesman for Purdue Pharma previously told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of New Jersey. “We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense.”
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing 63,600 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The increase is driven primarily by opioids, which claimed 42,249 lives last year, a 28 percent increase over the roughly 33,000 lives lost to opioids in 2015.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr
Vice Reporter
4:55 PM 02/07/2018
Officials in Alabama are suing the makers of the painkiller OxyContin, accusing the company of deceiving the public about the risks of opioids in pursuit of profits.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed the lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, which seeks to hold Purdue Pharma liable for the economic damage of the opioid epidemic in the state. Hundreds of residents in Alabama die from opioid-related overdoses each year, leading to a drop in the overall life expectancy in the state, reports NPR.
Marshall argues that the early marketing practices of Purdue Pharma surrounding their drug OxyContin opened the doors for the pharmaceutical industry to push overprescribing of painkillers for chronic pain patients.
“The opioid epidemic has devastated Alabama families, leaving a trail of addiction and death winding though every community of this state,” Marshall said Tuesday in a statement. “It will take years to undo the damage but an important first step we must take is to hold the parties responsible for this epidemic legally liable for the destruction they have unleashed upon our citizens.”
Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in 2007 to felony charges for false marketing of OxyContin and paid $635 million as a result. The company overstated how long the effects of the medication lasted and severely downplayed the addiction risks of the drug. Three executives also pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but dodged prison time.
Purdue Pharma denies allegations of complicity in the opioid epidemic and says it is committed to curbing rates of opioid abuse.
“We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis and we are dedicated to being part of the solution,” a spokesman for Purdue Pharma previously told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of New Jersey. “We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense.”
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing 63,600 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The increase is driven primarily by opioids, which claimed 42,249 lives last year, a 28 percent increase over the roughly 33,000 lives lost to opioids in 2015.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
FDA Calls Controversial Supplement Kratom An Opioid
freebeacon
Charles Fain Lehman
February 8, 2018 5:00 am
Kratom, the controversial drug proponents of which argue could help combat the opioid epidemic, contains opioid compounds and has the potential for abuse, according to a report issued by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday.
"As the scientific data and adverse event reports have clearly revealed, compounds in kratom make it so it isn't just a plant—it's an opioid," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said.
Kratom refers to a plant originating in southeast Asia, where its leaves are chewed to relieve pain, improve mood, and as a stimulant. In recent years it has spread to the United States, where it is sold in pill form, consumed in tea, or smoked. Kratom is legal at the federal level, but regulators have voiced concerns about its opioid-like effects. In the summer of 2016, the Drug Enforcement Agency announced that it was listing several of kratom's active ingredients as a schedule 1 drug on an emergency basis, putting it in the same group as heroin, LSD, and MDMA.
Public outcry followed, including a 120,000-signature petition presented to the Obama White House and a letter from a bipartisan group of House members. This response prompted the DEA to announce that it would delay its ban pending public comment.
Since then, kratom has existed in a legal limbo, not scheduled but currently listed as a "drug of concern" by the DEA. The FDA has also been closely following the drug, issuing a public health advisory last November cautioning against use of the drug, and placing kratom products on import alert to prevent them from entering the the United States illegally.
The latest report from the federal drug regulator suggests these proactive measures may have been warranted.
The FDA's new analysis used computerized 3D modeling to investigate the molecular structure of the compounds that make up kratom. That analysis concluded "that all of the [kratom] compounds share the most structural similarities with controlled opioid analgesics, such as morphine derivatives." It also found that many of the compounds in kratom bind to the same receptors in the brain—mu-opioid receptors—as opioids do.
"The data from the PHASE model shows us that kratom compounds are predicted to affect the body just like opioids. Based on the scientific information in the literature and further supported by our computational modeling and the reports of its adverse effects in humans, we feel confident in calling compounds found in kratom, opioids," Gottlieb said.
The FDA also identifed 44 reported deaths associated with the use of kratom. At least one of those deaths, Gottlieb noted, involved an individual with no known history of opioid use besides kratom.
This adds up to a fairly damning case against kratom, Gottlieb said.
"Taken in total, the scientific evidence we've evaluated about kratom provides a clear picture of the biologic effect of this substance. Kratom should not be used to treat medical conditions, nor should it be used as an alternative to prescription opioids. There is no evidence to indicate that kratom is safe or effective for any medical use," he said.
He also objected to those kratom advocates who try to discount kratom's opioid effects because of its herbal plant appearance.
"Claiming that kratom is benign because it's ‘just a plant' is shortsighted and dangerous," Gottlieb said. "After all, heroin is an illegal, dangerous, and highly-addictive substance containing the opioid morphine, derived from the seed pod of the various opium poppy plants."
Congressional supporters of kratom have previously contended that the drug is not an opioid, and does not represent enough of a public safety risk to merit scheduling by the DEA.
"Kratom is not an opioid, it is a natural supplement made from the leaves of a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia and a relative of the coffee plant," wrote the aforementioned 25 House members. "Numerous scientific studies, including studied funded by the NIH, have shown the addiction potential for kratom is substantially lower than that of ‘narcotic-like opioids' and it does not produce the deadly respiratory depressant effects that is the primary cause of opioid overdose deaths."
"The DEA has a limited amount of resources, and we feel taxpayer dollars should be prioritized to prevent the sale of illegal substances like heroin and fentanyl," the letter, sent in January, read.
The opioid status of kratom, and its overdose risk, are particularly important given the nationwide opioid epidemic. Recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that opioids are responsible for more than 42,000 overdose deaths in 2016. The rise in drug overdose, driven largely by opioids, is responsible for a two-year drop in U.S. life expectancy.
Thank You Mr Lehman and the DC.
Charles Fain Lehman
February 8, 2018 5:00 am
Kratom, the controversial drug proponents of which argue could help combat the opioid epidemic, contains opioid compounds and has the potential for abuse, according to a report issued by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday.
"As the scientific data and adverse event reports have clearly revealed, compounds in kratom make it so it isn't just a plant—it's an opioid," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said.
Kratom refers to a plant originating in southeast Asia, where its leaves are chewed to relieve pain, improve mood, and as a stimulant. In recent years it has spread to the United States, where it is sold in pill form, consumed in tea, or smoked. Kratom is legal at the federal level, but regulators have voiced concerns about its opioid-like effects. In the summer of 2016, the Drug Enforcement Agency announced that it was listing several of kratom's active ingredients as a schedule 1 drug on an emergency basis, putting it in the same group as heroin, LSD, and MDMA.
Public outcry followed, including a 120,000-signature petition presented to the Obama White House and a letter from a bipartisan group of House members. This response prompted the DEA to announce that it would delay its ban pending public comment.
Since then, kratom has existed in a legal limbo, not scheduled but currently listed as a "drug of concern" by the DEA. The FDA has also been closely following the drug, issuing a public health advisory last November cautioning against use of the drug, and placing kratom products on import alert to prevent them from entering the the United States illegally.
The latest report from the federal drug regulator suggests these proactive measures may have been warranted.
The FDA's new analysis used computerized 3D modeling to investigate the molecular structure of the compounds that make up kratom. That analysis concluded "that all of the [kratom] compounds share the most structural similarities with controlled opioid analgesics, such as morphine derivatives." It also found that many of the compounds in kratom bind to the same receptors in the brain—mu-opioid receptors—as opioids do.
"The data from the PHASE model shows us that kratom compounds are predicted to affect the body just like opioids. Based on the scientific information in the literature and further supported by our computational modeling and the reports of its adverse effects in humans, we feel confident in calling compounds found in kratom, opioids," Gottlieb said.
The FDA also identifed 44 reported deaths associated with the use of kratom. At least one of those deaths, Gottlieb noted, involved an individual with no known history of opioid use besides kratom.
This adds up to a fairly damning case against kratom, Gottlieb said.
"Taken in total, the scientific evidence we've evaluated about kratom provides a clear picture of the biologic effect of this substance. Kratom should not be used to treat medical conditions, nor should it be used as an alternative to prescription opioids. There is no evidence to indicate that kratom is safe or effective for any medical use," he said.
He also objected to those kratom advocates who try to discount kratom's opioid effects because of its herbal plant appearance.
"Claiming that kratom is benign because it's ‘just a plant' is shortsighted and dangerous," Gottlieb said. "After all, heroin is an illegal, dangerous, and highly-addictive substance containing the opioid morphine, derived from the seed pod of the various opium poppy plants."
Congressional supporters of kratom have previously contended that the drug is not an opioid, and does not represent enough of a public safety risk to merit scheduling by the DEA.
"Kratom is not an opioid, it is a natural supplement made from the leaves of a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia and a relative of the coffee plant," wrote the aforementioned 25 House members. "Numerous scientific studies, including studied funded by the NIH, have shown the addiction potential for kratom is substantially lower than that of ‘narcotic-like opioids' and it does not produce the deadly respiratory depressant effects that is the primary cause of opioid overdose deaths."
"The DEA has a limited amount of resources, and we feel taxpayer dollars should be prioritized to prevent the sale of illegal substances like heroin and fentanyl," the letter, sent in January, read.
The opioid status of kratom, and its overdose risk, are particularly important given the nationwide opioid epidemic. Recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that opioids are responsible for more than 42,000 overdose deaths in 2016. The rise in drug overdose, driven largely by opioids, is responsible for a two-year drop in U.S. life expectancy.
Thank You Mr Lehman and the DC.
Maryland's Largest County Sues Drug Makers For Spreading Addiction And Death
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4:36 PM 02/08/2018
The most populous county in Maryland is suing drug makers for sparking, “unprecedented opioid addiction,” through deceptive marketing of their painkillers.
Officials with Montgomery County filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court Tuesday, targeting a number of the nation’s largest manufacturers and distributors of opioid painkillers including Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Cardinal Health. They allege the companies deceived the public and doctors on the addiction risks of their drugs and failed to report suspicious pill orders, reports The Washington Post.
Montgomery County lost 117 residents to opioid overdoses in 2016, up from only 27 in 2010. County officials want the pharmaceutical industry on the hook for the rising public costs of fighting the overdose epidemic.
“It is critical that we hold responsible the manufacturers and distributors whose negative actions have significantly contributed to the crisis,” Isiah Leggett, county executive, told The Washington Post.Pharmaceutical companies have previously denied any claims of wrongdoing and say they are committed to working with the government to solve the opioid epidemic.
“We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis and we are dedicated to being part of the solution,” a spokesman for Purdue Pharma previously told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of New Jersey. “We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense.”
Lawsuits are mounting against the largest drug makers in the country for their alleged complicity in sparking the opioid crisis through dishonest advertising. There are currently more than 75 cities and states suing pharmaceutical companies over the destructive addiction crisis.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing 63,600 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4:36 PM 02/08/2018
The most populous county in Maryland is suing drug makers for sparking, “unprecedented opioid addiction,” through deceptive marketing of their painkillers.
Officials with Montgomery County filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court Tuesday, targeting a number of the nation’s largest manufacturers and distributors of opioid painkillers including Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Cardinal Health. They allege the companies deceived the public and doctors on the addiction risks of their drugs and failed to report suspicious pill orders, reports The Washington Post.
Montgomery County lost 117 residents to opioid overdoses in 2016, up from only 27 in 2010. County officials want the pharmaceutical industry on the hook for the rising public costs of fighting the overdose epidemic.
“It is critical that we hold responsible the manufacturers and distributors whose negative actions have significantly contributed to the crisis,” Isiah Leggett, county executive, told The Washington Post.Pharmaceutical companies have previously denied any claims of wrongdoing and say they are committed to working with the government to solve the opioid epidemic.
“We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis and we are dedicated to being part of the solution,” a spokesman for Purdue Pharma previously told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of New Jersey. “We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense.”
Lawsuits are mounting against the largest drug makers in the country for their alleged complicity in sparking the opioid crisis through dishonest advertising. There are currently more than 75 cities and states suing pharmaceutical companies over the destructive addiction crisis.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing 63,600 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
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