DEA issues first immediate suspension of opioid sales to a wholesaler since 2012 [View all]

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Friday that it had immediately suspended opioid sales by a wholesale distributor, accusing a Louisiana company of failing to report unusually large shipments of narcotics to independent drugstores “with questionable need for the drugs.”

It was the first time the agency had immediately cut off narcotic sales by a distributor in six years, Justice Department officials said.

The DEA said Morris & Dickson of Shreveport failed to “properly identify large suspicious orders for controlled substances sold to independent pharmacies,” in some cases sending out six times a drugstore’s normal order without notifying federal drug officials as required by law.

An investigation begun in October showed that the wholesaler sent the drugs to five of the top 10 purchasers of narcotics in Louisiana. “Not only were numerous independent retail pharmacies purchasing more oxycodone and hydrocodone than the largest chain pharmacies operating within the state, they were purchasing more narcotics than several of the largest chain pharmacies combined within the same Zip code,” the DEA alleged in a news release.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/dea-issues-first-immediate-suspension-of-opioid-sales-to-a-wholesaler-since-2012/2018/05/04/660f53be-4fe4-11e8-84a0-458a1aa9ac0a_story.html