Donna Leinwand Leger at usatoday.com offers an interesting piece about the DEA's strategy to attack the prescription drug abuse problem at the highest levels.
This month, the DEA accused Cardinal Health, a Fortune 500 company with $103 billion in revenue, of endangering the public by selling excessive amounts of oxycodone to four Florida pharmacies. The charges came in an immediate suspension order served Feb. 3 when the agency suspended Cardinal's license to distribute controlled substances from its Lakeland, Fla., hub, which serves four states.
Cardinal challenged the suspension in federal court. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton temporarily halted the DEA's suspension and scheduled a hearing for Wednesday. In preparation for the hearing, the DEA and Cardinal have filed hundreds of pages of documents that provide an inside look into how prescription painkillers such as oxycodone and hydrocodone have flooded the black market.
The investigation into Cardinal led the DEA to suspend the licenses of four of the company's largest Florida customers, including Gulf Coast and two CVS pharmacies in Sanford, Fla. Like Cardinal, CVS challenged the suspensions in federal court.
The suspensions are an aggressive display of the DEA's strategy to attack the prescription drug abuse problem at the highest levels. After years of cracking down on doctors who dispense drugs from clinics known as pill mills, DEA agents are targeting the top of the supply chain as part of a comprehensive strategy to stop the flow of prescription drugs to street dealers.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
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