Gulf Breeze Recovery on The Drug Industry's Role in the Opioid Epidemic
GULF BREEZE, Fla. (PRWEB) July 25, 2019 -- Long-awaited information on the drug industry’s role in the opioid epidemic is finally being released.
U.S. District Court Judge Dan A. Polster, who sits on the bench in the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division in Cleveland signed an order to release a large portion of the searchable database called the Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS).
ARCOS monitors DEA controlled substances from manufacture through commercial distribution and dispensing to hospitals, pharmacies, practitioners, mid-level practitioners, and teaching institutions. The information gathered has historically been put into reports that Federal investigators and state government agencies can access to identify diversion of controlled substances into illegal channels of distribution.
Some drug companies fought in court to keep the information from being made public, saying that it contained proprietary details of their business practices. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also opposed releasing the data because they say that it has sensitive information used by law enforcement.
Judge Polster said in the July 15, 2019 filing there is “clearly no basis” for shielding older data collected and maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The information released will illustrate transaction-by-transaction from 2006 through 2012 how opioid pain pills were manufactured, distributed, and sold by pharmacy chains, and which U.S. communities were hardest hit as more and more of the addictive medications were dispensed. Judge Polster is not releasing information collected after 2012 due to DEA concerns that it could interfere with on-going investigations.
In late 2018, Judge Polster refused drug companies motion to dismiss the multi-district lawsuit. “It is accurate to describe the opioid epidemic as a man-made plague, twenty years in the making,” Polster went on to write in that ruling. “The pain, death, and heartache it has wrought cannot be overstated.”
Judge Polster is overseeing the consolidated lawsuit in Ohio involving more than 1200 local governments who are suing 23 of the largest firms in the drug industry from manufacturers to pharmacy chains such as Walgreens and CVS. The lawsuit claims that the pharmaceutical industries used aggressive marketing practices and were not truthful about the risks involved with the pain medications, causing the opioid epidemic to worsen.
Opioid-related settlements from some of the nation’s largest drugmakers have totaled almost $2 billion this year. Even so, most firms continue to deny any wrongdoing.
Barnett Gilmer, Owner, and CEO of Gulf Breeze Recovery, a residential substance abuse treatment facility in the Florida panhandle, stated, “The relative ease of obtaining powerful opioid pain medications triggered addiction that spanned age, social status, race or gender. Many of our clients started their path to addiction from medications legally obtained from medical professionals that most likely did not understand, at least early on, the addictive potential of the opioids they prescribed.”
About Gulf Breeze Recovery: Gulf Breeze Recovery is changing the future of addiction treatment with the THRIVE® program focused on overcoming chronic relapse. Gulf Breeze Recovery’s THRIVE® program is a non 12-step approach and individualized designed for those who are looking for a drug and alcohol treatment program to produce a different and positive result. This non-12 step program allows you to drive beyond your addictions and promotes a new outlook on life. For more information about our program or to speak with an Addiction’s expert, please call 855-973-3551 or contact us.
Barnett Gilmer, Gulf Breeze Recovery, https://www.gulfbreezerecovery.com/, 8559733551, [email protected]
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