January 30, 2018

Pharmacies in West Virginia town of 2900 get two million pain killers a year

Charleston Gazette-Mail  -Over the past decade, out-of-state drug companies shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies four blocks apart in a Southern West Virginia town with 2,900 people, according to a congressional committee investigating the opioid crisis.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the massive shipments of hydrocodone and oxycodone — two powerful painkillers — to the town of Williamson, in Mingo County, amid the panel’s inquiry into the role of drug distributors in the opioid epidemic.

“These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia,” said committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., in a joint statement.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Neither of those is "powerful". I was prescribed hydrocodone for use in lieu of ibuprofen because I can't tell when I've taken too many and am bleeding into my stomach. And I was prescribed oxycodone after breaking my shoulder 3 years ago. It dialed down the pain, but it certainly wasn't "magical" - a 800mg ibuprofen tab, as is commonly given for dental pain, might have been able to do the same (tho I might also have bled to death internally).