On a Tuesday just before Halloween in 2018, a group of federal prosecutors and agents from Texas arrived in Washington. For almost two years, they’d been investigating the opioid dispensing practices of Walmart, the largest company in the world. They had amassed what they viewed as highly damning evidence only to face a major obstacle: […]
The Lost Border in the Jungle Part 2/6…
Inside the Drug Industry’s Plan to Defeat the DEA…
Newly unsealed documents in a landmark civil case in Cleveland provide clues to one of the most enduring mysteries of the opioid epidemic: How were drug companies able to weaken the federal government’s most powerful enforcement weapon at the height of the crisis? The industry enlisted members of Congress to limit the powers of the […]
Little-Known Makers of Generic Drugs Played Central Role in Opioid Crisis…
Douglas S. Boothe was the leader of a little-known generic-drug maker seven years ago when federal agents approached his company with an urgent plea: Slash production of an addictive pain medication that was fueling a national crisis. Boothe “wasn’t interested” and rejected the Drug Enforcement Administration’s request that Actavis voluntarily cut its supply of oxycodone […]
The Biggest Civil Trial in U.S. History Will Start These Ohio Counties…
At Knuckleheads Bar & Grill, the subject on a sweltering Saturday afternoon was the drug crisis. More specifically, the recent disclosure that the CVS across the street received more pain pills — 6.4 million — over a seven-year period than any other drugstore in Cuyahoga County. “Location, location, location,” said Mike Gorman, 37, who was […]
My God, They Are Trying to Kill Us!: 76 Billion Opioid Pills – Newly Released Federal Data Unmasks the Epidemic…
America’s largest drug companies saturated the country with 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills from 2006 through 2012 as the nation’s deadliest drug epidemic spun out of control, according to previously undisclosed company data released as part of the largest civil action in U.S. history. The information comes from a database maintained by the […]
DEA Never Checked If Its Massive Surveillance Operations Are Legal, Watchdog Says…
The Drug Enforcement Administration skirted numerous legal checks on a trio of bulk data collection programs dating back to the early 1990s, according to an internal watchdog. In a heavily redacted, 144-page report published Thursday, the Justice Department Inspector General revealed the administration failed to fully assess the legal basis for three massive international surveillance […]
China Bans All Types of Fentanyl …
China has banned all forms of the opioid fentanyl, following a promise President Xi Jinping made to President Donald Trump last year, The New York Times reports. Much of the world’s fentanyl is believed to be made in China, and the drug increasingly became a point of contention between the U.S. and China as fentanyl-related […]