Drug firms shipped 20.8M pain pills to WV town with 2,900 people

[Sunlei]

Source: Charleston Gazette Mail

Between 2006 and 2016, drug wholesalers shipped 10.2 million hydrocodone pills and 10.6 million oxycodone pills to Tug Valley Pharmacy and Hurley Drug in Williamson, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data obtained by the House Committee.

Springboro, Ohio-based Miami-Luken sold 6.4 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to Tug Valley Pharmacy from 2008 to 2015, the company disclosed to the panel. That’s more than half of all painkillers shipped to the pharmacy those years. In a single year (2008 to 2009), Miami-Luken’s shipments increased three-fold to the Mingo County town.

The drug wholesaler shipped 5.7 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to Save-Rite and a branch pharmacy called Sav-Rite #2 between 2005 and 2011, according records Miami-Luken gave the committee. In 2008, the company provided 5,624 prescription pain pills for every man, woman and child in Kermit.

The House committee questioned H.D. Smith’s painkiller shipments to Family Discount Pharmacy in Logan County. The drug shipper distributed 3,000 hydrocodone tablets a day to the pharmacy in 2008, a 10-fold increase in sales from the previous year, according to the committee’s letter. The pharmacy, located in a town of 1,800 people, was shipped 1.1 million hydrocodone pills in 2008.

Read more: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/health/drug-firms-shipped-m-pain-pills-to-wv-town-with/article_ef04190c-1763-5a0c-a77a-7da0ff06455b.html

---

Not reported, didn't the drug corps also crank-up the price per tablet? The street price per tablet went up to the $30s each from a couple dollars- last time I noticed.

Meanwhile our local and Federal governments were after plants, pocket searches, cash seizures and jailing as many 'crack' cocaine users as possible. Grouping with Foreign governments south to spend billions & billions 'waring' against what they called 'drugs'.

[marble falls]

1. Where's a grand jury and prosecuter???

[sarge43]

2. Looking the other way? n/t

[marble falls]

3. Sounds about right.

[getagrip_already]

13. trump's cronies had the charges buried...

really pissed off the dea, but all charges against companies like mckessan were buried. There were stories about it not that long ago. Should be easy to find if you are curious.

[marble falls]

15. Now that you mention it, I recall the DEA was pissed because they felt they had a case wrapped up...

with a ribbon and the US Attorney refused to go forward. I do not remember the unbelievable quantity of pill involved from the story, though. Its almost unbelievable.

[Botany]

4. That town really is a little burg on the KY/WV border

[Marthe48]

5. Current WV AG morrisey was a lobbyist for a drug trade group?

Wow, more repug foxes guarding the henhouse.

From the Charleston Gazette-Mail: "In February 2016, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey ended a state lawsuit against Miami-Luken after the company agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle allegations that it flooded the state with painkillers. Morrisey, a former lobbyist for a trade group that represents Miami-Luken and other drug distributors, inherited the lawsuit in 2013 after ousting longtime Attorney General Darrell McGraw."

How in the name of God have we allowed so many unsavory, self-serving people to drive the bus. The business of America isn't business, it's shady deals.

[jalan48]

6. I think these folks are called Pushers on the street. Pushers normally go to jail when caught.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

7. No worries- it was announced yesterday Ogden is buying this newspaper

So the drug company can do whatever it wants, safe from prying eyes, in the future

[angrychair]

8. Dont worry your beautiful mind

They will pay a fine and told “No! No!” And keep on doing it but they will pay that fine again gosh darn it.

[Sunlei]

9. this is just one small town, IMO across the USA are thousands of small towns full of addicted people

Drugs supplied by the 'FOR PROFIT' medicine and health care system American people suffer from.

Our Congress, our government allows this to happen, if not for Obama admin 'upgrading' our medical reporting methods- we wouldn't even know about this today.

[IronLionZion]

10. I've heard West Virginians claim that since Obama killed off the coal jobs,

the only source of income in their state is selling pills and prostitution. There's even a documentary about it called Oxyana about a WV town that sells a lot of Oxy

[ProfessorGAC]

11. And In My Town of 6,000. . .

. . .the three CVS stores within easy driving distance were out of vicodin for three days and my wife had to extend her existing scrip.

Hmmmmm.

[not fooled]

12. Crack and pot dealers get persecuted

but opioid dealers make millions. Both the New Yorker and Esquire recently ran exposes on the Sackler family, the pushers of "legal" opioids who have made billions and are "renowned" "philanthropists".

[TheFrenchRazor]

18. fine, let's stop the prosecution of all of them, ok? sounds good to me. nt

[getagrip_already]

14. being gop is the ultimate gateway drug... n/t

[Journeyman]

16. Lenny Bruce observed, to find the real drug pushers look to the pharmaceutical companies . . .

[TheFrenchRazor]

17. yay!!! War On Drugs!!!!! not. nt