DEA Fines Walgreen's $80 Million for Selling Prescription Painkillers

The DEA slams another American business just selling people substances that they want, because, well, they should have known that people involved had the wrong motives in wanting to possess those pills.

From Reuters the other day:

Walgreen Co, the largest U.S. drugstore chain, has agreed to pay $80 million in civil penalties to resolve allegations that it violated federal rules governing the distribution of prescription painkillers.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday said the settlement is the largest in its history.

The DEA accused Walgreen of committing an "unprecedented" number of record-keeping and dispensing violations of the Controlled Substances Act.

As a result, the DEA said, Walgreen negligently allowed controlled substances such as the narcotic oxycodone and other prescription painkillers to be distributed to abusers and sold illegally on the black market….

As part of the settlement, Walgreen admitted that it failed to uphold its obligations as a DEA registrant.

Six Walgreen pharmacies in Florida and a distribution center in Jupiter, Florida were given a two-year ban from dispensing various controlled substances, the DEA said.

Walgreen also agreed to enhance training and compliance programs, and set up a Department of Pharmaceutical Integrity to help prevent similar violations.

Walgreen's public mea culpa and declaration of love for Big Brother.

Re-read early and often Jacob's Sullum's 1997 Reason classic on the government's nightmarish war on painkillers, "No Relief in Sight."

[Hat tip: Meghan Ralston of Drug Police Alliance]