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| A Drug Enforcement Administration officer walks into a medical clinic in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, May 20, 2015. The DEA began wrapping up a multistate crackdown on prescription drug abuse with raids at pain clinics, pharmacies and other locations in the South. |
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
(AP) -- Authorities raided medical clinics, pharmacies and other
locations across the South on Wednesday as part of a Drug Enforcement
Administration attempt to thwart illegal prescription drug sales.
The
raids in Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi were the latest
stage of an operation launched last summer by the Drug Enforcement
Administration's drug diversion unit, which has now netted 280 arrests
over more than a year, including 22 doctors and pharmacists.
"We
have people who have taken an oath to do no harm who are throwing that
oath out the window," DEA Special Agent in Charge Keith Brown said after
the early morning raids.
The DEA's "Operation
Pilluted" had focused on the illegal distribution of oxycodone,
hydrocodone and Xanax by medical professionals, and does not target
addicts. Agents arrested 48 people Wednesday: 22 in Louisiana, nine each
in Alabama and Arkansas and eight in Mississippi.
Since
January 2014, half of the overall arrests have occurred in Arkansas. It
and the other three states involved in Wednesday's raids each ranked
among the top 11 states for hydrocodone prescriptions in 2014, according
to DEA data.
"Arkansas is unfortunately not
only not immune from this epidemic, but in some ways, we are a leading
cause of it," U.S. Attorney Chris Thyer said. He said the state has 146
million hydrocodone pills distributed annually.
In
Little Rock, agents raided the KJ Medical Center within sight of the
DEA's local office, detaining seven people, and also swept into the
Bowman Curve Pharmacy a mile away, where one woman was brought out in
handcuffs.
Thyer said at a news conference
that customers at the KJ clinic were told in November to take their
prescriptions to Bowman Curve after a major chain pharmacy raised
questions.
He said that, of the 1,484
prescriptions filled at Bowman Curve Pharmacy between December and
March, only six were not sent from the KJ clinic.
Agents also said that, during Wednesday's raid, officers seized four loaded guns and a money counter from the KJ clinic.
The
KJ Medical Center was often protected by a security guard while another
employee was often stationed outside to direct traffic when patients
started showing up around 6:45 each morning. Agents arrested one
uniformed guard and another man identified as security personnel, two
nurses, a doctor, a man identified as the office manager and a man
accused of recruiting homeless people and others to obtain unneeded
prescriptions.
Reporters asked the doctor if
he was selling pills illegally. He responded, "No," as he was led away
in handcuffs and placed in a prisoner van.
A
DEA official had told The Associated Press on Tuesday that, in Mobile,
Alabama, agents targeted two doctors accused of running multiple pain
clinics.
Thyer said about 130 previous
Arkansas arrests were linked to the operation, including one Monday by
Lonoke County officials. Police began investigating a Little Rock doctor
after a patient's death was blamed on a prescription drug overdose. He
was arrested Monday and charged with 187 counts of fraudulent practices.
The list also includes a 2014 raid on an oxycodone distribution ring that netted 33 indictments.
At
a Montgomery, Alabama, press conference, Gov. Robert Bentley, a
dermatologist, held up a copy of the license that allows him to
prescribe painkillers to patients.
He said
that while drugs can help patients, doctors who overprescribe them to
aid abusers "change from being a physician to really being a drug
dealer."
"These physicians are an embarrassment to the medical profession," Bentley said.
Prosecutors said four of the nine people arrested in Alabama on Wednesday were doctors, as were two in Louisiana.
DEA
officials said 40 doctors, pharmacies and others have surrendered their
DEA registration numbers as part of the crackdown, and two immediate
suspension orders were issued. A registration number is required to
prescribe certain medications.
Those arrested
Wednesday face a variety of state and federal criminal charges,
including distribution of a controlled substance and conspiracy to
distribute a controlled substance.
Law
enforcement officials also have warned that people who become addicted
to prescription painkillers often turn to heroin when it becomes too
difficult to get a prescription.
