DEA Settles Walgreens Painkiller Case for $80M
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/dea-settles-walgreens-painkiller-case-80m-19375563#.Ubd-apzgefE
From the article:
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has reached an $80 million civil settlement with the Walgreens pharmacy chain over violations of rules governing the distribution of powerful prescription painkillers.
DEA officials said Tuesday that Walgreens committed numerous record-keeping and dispensing violations of the Controlled Substances Act. That allowed drugs such as oxycodone to be improperly sold to abusers and for illegal sales on the black market.
According to published reports http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/wag/financials
WAGS’ 2013 net profit was 2.13 billion… if my math is correct, this fine represents about 14 days worth of net profits… OUCH…. that should get their attention !
Of course this is just a SETTLEMENT… which suggests that WAGS admitted no wrong doing…
BUT.. don’t “drug dealers” normally go to JAIL ?
BUT.. if you settle… you are not a convicted “drug dealer” and thus avoid going to jail …
Normally, doesn’t suspected “drug dealers” have all their property owned by the suspected drug dealer …confiscated?
I wonder how many “garden variety drug dealers” are allowed to negotiate and settle with paying a fine and not go to jail ?
Maybe we just have a TWO TIER JUSTICE SYSTEM…
Maybe the word “FINE” is a bureaucratic euphemism for BRIBE ?
Filed under: General Problems
read more about it here
http://www.justice.gov/dea/divisions/mia/2013/mia061113.shtml
If the stuff the DEA is saying about Walgreens, then it means a lot of pharmacists were filling prescriptions for addicts. But, how do we know this is true? Why was Walgreen’s singled out? First, I don’t trust the DEA one little bit. They can always find something about prescriptions to claim ‘improper paperwork’. I think the real story is that the DEA is going after pharmacies in the US. My guess is that Walgreens was ‘blackmailed’ into saying they were guilty. Either they say that or the DEA threatens them with imprisonment. My guess…and it is just a guess….the real villian in the whole story is DEA.
I would bet somewhere along the line it’ll be the PICs or staff RPhs that get tagged as ‘dealers’ by either the company or boards and punished. Remember the case in Indy not long ago the owner/RPh was fined, lost ownwership of his store and was put on 5 yrs probation becaise off filling oxys and other CIIs for a certain professional ball player.and yes they knew doc was trying to wean him off alledgedly. Yes they were wrong but doc in my eyes was real ‘dealer’. Rph just got his license cleared. Theres more to that story but too long to comment. Of course his was all over the news unlike Big Evil and others you dont hear about.Yes I believe there is 2.tier system ( one for corps amd one for indies and everyone else). The state and national boards need.to get off the corporate nipple.and get a freakin backbone and treat these big box places like everyone else. As much as I document doc insists its for legimate medical need, there is still the veiled threat of losing my job for refusing certain customers. Matter of.fact cant.prove it but I believe thats one of the reasons for gettng laid off at my last place…refusing to fill a.regular customers stuff early and keeping both her docs informed…she had them both conned on pain meds. She clearly showed addiction signs.
Just look at the numbers… you shut down a indy.. how many jobs are lost.. maybe a handful… how much local property tax lost when building goes empty.. not much…
What is the likelihood of how much legal expenses the BOP will expend taking on a indy .. as opposed to a chain.. they don’t have huge budgets and/or surpluses.. Indiana is one of a few states that is not up to their eyeballs in debt.. they even have a surplus. Damn Republicans spend less than the state takes in … in taxes… can you imagine 🙁
how many employees get kicked to the curb if a chain store goes down… couple of dozen… much more in property tax and income taxes… it is reported that 75% of the BOP have corporate employees sitting on the board.. they work for the “boob” that they are feeding off of..
When you have the fox monitoring the “hen house”.. you are going to come up missing some chickens…
That “too big to fail crap”.. they don’t finish the sentence … “too small to matter …”
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Just look at the Indiana BOP.. all but two are corporate employees.. one of the two remaining is a indy.. and the other is “consumer representative” – an attorney… and many on the BOP are in their THIRD or FOURTH – four year term – IN A ROW ! apparently no term limits here or believed needed !