Drug Wholesalers Flood Over 20 Million Painkillers into a Tiny West Virginia Town
Oh man, I’m about to go on a tirade on this one. Just when I thought I had heard everything when it comes to the opiate epidemic, I come across stories that are just plain outrageous. It’s beginning to seem like the opiate crisis was created on purpose. All the pieces just kind of came together like some choreographed dance. Doctors overprescribed painkillers, got tons of people hooked, and drug companies shadily marketed their drugs while apparently also flooding every city and state with insane amounts of oxycodone and hydrocodone. Now, there is a report of drug wholesalers flooding tiny, rural towns with massive amounts of drugs when it doesn’t even seem necessary.
In recent investigations and reports, two committees began inquiring about drug companies’ involvement in the current drug crisis and cited the fact that there had been massive shipments of high-potency painkillers into the town of Williamson, West Virginia. Nearly 21 million painkillers had been shipped to two pharmacies in a town of only 2,900 people. Why on earth would such a small town need that many pills? A panel investigating this recently asked the drug wholesalers Miami-Luken and H.D. Smith why they didn’t see the orders coming from this small town as even somewhat suspicious. At this exact time, overdoses skyrocketed in the area and seem directly related to the mass quantity of drugs readily available. Also, one Virginia doctor who seemed to be operating a “pill mill” wrote over 40% of the oxycodone prescriptions that were being filled at these pharmacies.
Committee Chairman Greg Walden and Frank Pallone Jr. said in a joint statement, “These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia.” Unfortunately, West Virginia has the highest overdose rate in the country—more than any other state, with more than 880 people who died from fatal drug overdoses.
This is exactly the kind of thing that has kept the opiate crisis going. Getting more people addicted to painkillers who then, in turn, require more drugs to fulfill their habit, and then flooding nearly the entire country with a ridiculous amount of pills to meet the demand. We can’t forget that the U.S. consumes more than three-quarters of the world’s opiate supply. We’ve got an incredible thirst for them that’s not easily quenched and the reality is that we need to get as many people off of these drugs as possible, teach them how to manage their pain, and give them the skills they need to deal with life on life’s terms. And the only way to do that is through long-term drug rehab. I know I say that over and over and over and it’s like I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but it’s true. That’s the only way to slow this epidemic. Until then, we’re going to keep reading and hearing stories such as this. It’s unfortunately that a lot of us are completely desensitized to the whole crisis and, at this point, nothing is shocking anymore.
