Federal agents search records, drug inventories at Martinsburg, WV pharmacy
Including the long acting Oxycontin… Oxycodone has NINE DIFFERENT STRENGTHS… but according to this article the DEA only looked at the number of doses a pharmacy purchased… apparently of all strengths.. Another DEA fishing expedition ?
Federal authorities have searched a Martinsburg pharmacy to “verify the correctness of controlled substance inventories, records, reports and other documents,” authorities said in a July 6 filing with U.S. District Court in Clarksburg.
City Pharmacy was flagged when a Drug Enforcement Administration agent took note of the pharmacy’s oxycodone purchases: Lindsey Malocu, DEA Diversion Investigator, said in an affidavit supporting the records check the pharmacy had purchased 237,500 dosage units of oxycodone in 2013, and 130,600 doses the following year.
The average retail pharmacy in West Virginia purchased 80,550 doses in 2013 and 80,203 in 2014, Malocu said. The national average was 69,881 dosage units in 2013, and 71,128 in 2014.
The pharmacy had never been inspected by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Malocu wrote in the supporting affidavit.
U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld II declined to comment, saying that, “Due to the ongoing nature of the case, we do not have any comment at this time.”
Filed under: General Problems
How about we look at different numbers? Like how many patients have been negatively affected by the DEA’s fishing expeditions. And what conditions these pharmacy customers were being treated for. Is it a large percentage of cancer patients? Or maybe it’s a large number of Medicaid patients, forced into lock-out programs with this one pharmacy.
Very good point. The should be innocent until proven guilty. All things need to be considered. I’m sure there are more things that need to be looked at in this case.