Norman J Clement, Aaron Howard, Rick Fertil demand the return of our DEA pharmacy Control Substance Registrations Immediately.
THE Scapegoating OF Walmart
BY
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
OF THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL
DECEMBER 29, 2020
The feds seek billions in penalties for filling valid opioid prescriptions
” One benefit of the Trump era has been the relative absence of dubious lawsuits against business. An exception is the Justice Department’s new suit against Walmart for filling opioid prescriptions.
The lawsuit in federal court in Delaware claims that Walmart “failed to detect and report at least hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders” and that as a pharmacy it “unlawfully filled thousands upon thousands of invalid controlled-substance prescriptions.” These actions enabled opioid abuse and “helped fuel a national crisis,” the feds say. (1)
The complaint alleges violations of the Controlled Substances Act and its accompanying regulations, but it is really a 160-page exercise in scapegoating a company because it is well-known and has deep pockets. Walmart doesn’t push pills on opioid addicts. Its pharmacists fill valid prescriptions written by doctors who are licensed by their states and registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
SITTING HEADLESS, LONDON, ENGLAND
When Walmart’s pharmacists catch a prescription that appears fraudulent or forged, they are trained to refuse to fill it and document the incident. Walmart says it has passed tens of thousands of leads about suspicious prescriptions to state and federal law enforcement. It’s the job of the DEA and state medical boards to investigate and revoke doctors’ licenses and prescribing privileges if there’s wrongdoing.
Yet the DEA rarely imposes such restrictions on physicians, and Walmart has no authority to act on its own. When pharmacists have refused to fill questionable prescriptions, doctors have sometimes sued for defamation and patients have sometimes sued for discrimination. Several states have prohibited pharmacists from interfering with the doctor-patient relationship by second-guessing valid prescriptions.
No federal law supersedes these state laws. Instead, the DEA has issued informal guidance on how pharmacists should ascertain whether an opioid prescription is medically legitimate. But this guidance doesn’t carry the force of law or regulation, and it has sometimes contradicted other federal guidance and statements on opioid dispensation.
Walmart notes that the DEA has suggested that some combinations of opioids never have a legitimate medical purpose and should never be filled. Yet the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services continues to cover these opioid combinations and wants such prescriptions to be evaluated based on individual medical circumstances. Walmart filed a pre-emptive suit in October seeking clarity about the standards for handling prescriptions, but it has received no answers.
A GREEK LUNCH, DELPHI GREECES
The DOJ complaint also includes more than 190 mentions of “red flags” about suspicious opioid prescriptions. It claims Walmart often didn’t adequately resolve them and sometimes knowingly filled illegitimate prescriptions despite the warnings. But Walmart notes in its lawsuit that the Controlled Substances Act “and its implementing regulations do not include the concept of red flags, let alone identify any particular factors as a red flag.”
The feds try to side-step this problem by claiming that, under the Controlled Substances Act and regulations, “the pharmacist’s conduct must adhere to the usual course of his or her professional practice as a pharmacist.” The complaint argues that catching and resolving “red flags” for opioid prescriptions is “a well-recognized responsibility of a pharmacist in the professional practice of pharmacy,” so “failing to fulfill this responsibility” is a violation of the federal law.
THE SUFFERING OF HUMANITY, GAUTENG SOUTH AFRICA
All of this raises constitutional issues based on a lack of legal standing. A negligence claim like the one alleged here is supposed to have a specific party claiming a specific injury caused by someone specific. Those are typically claims by one private party against another. The government can sue for violations of law, not because someone was negligent. The government’s claims of Controlled Substances Act violations are so general that they seem contrived to add some violation of the law.
In effect, DOJ is asking the federal court to overrule state law in favor of informal federal guidance and a vague notion of pharmaceutical best practices. This harassment was typical of the Obama era but it’s especially disappointing from the Trump Justice Department. The Biden Administration will be happy to run with this prosecutorial abuse.”
Norman J Clement, Aaron Howard, Rick Fertil demand the return of our DEA pharmacy Control Substance Registrations Immediately.
THE Scapegoating OF Walmart
BY
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
OF THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL
DECEMBER 29, 2020
The feds seek billions in penalties for filling valid opioid prescriptions
” One benefit of the Trump era has been the relative absence of dubious lawsuits against business. An exception is the Justice Department’s new suit against Walmart for filling opioid prescriptions.
The lawsuit in federal court in Delaware claims that Walmart “failed to detect and report at least hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders” and that as a pharmacy it “unlawfully filled thousands upon thousands of invalid controlled-substance prescriptions.” These actions enabled opioid abuse and “helped fuel a national crisis,” the feds say. (1)
The complaint alleges violations of the Controlled Substances Act and its accompanying regulations, but it is really a 160-page exercise in scapegoating a company because it is well-known and has deep pockets. Walmart doesn’t push pills on opioid addicts. Its pharmacists fill valid prescriptions written by doctors who are licensed by their states and registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
SITTING HEADLESS, LONDON, ENGLAND
When Walmart’s pharmacists catch a prescription that appears fraudulent or forged, they are trained to refuse to fill it and document the incident. Walmart says it has passed tens of thousands of leads about suspicious prescriptions to state and federal law enforcement. It’s the job of the DEA and state medical boards to investigate and revoke doctors’ licenses and prescribing privileges if there’s wrongdoing.
Yet the DEA rarely imposes such restrictions on physicians, and Walmart has no authority to act on its own. When pharmacists have refused to fill questionable prescriptions, doctors have sometimes sued for defamation and patients have sometimes sued for discrimination. Several states have prohibited pharmacists from interfering with the doctor-patient relationship by second-guessing valid prescriptions.
Former Senator Hatch on DEA and Opioid Crisis and Abuse
No federal law supersedes these state laws. Instead, the DEA has issued informal guidance on how pharmacists should ascertain whether an opioid prescription is medically legitimate. But this guidance doesn’t carry the force of law or regulation, and it has sometimes contradicted other federal guidance and statements on opioid dispensation.
Walmart notes that the DEA has suggested that some combinations of opioids never have a legitimate medical purpose and should never be filled. Yet the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services continues to cover these opioid combinations and wants such prescriptions to be evaluated based on individual medical circumstances. Walmart filed a pre-emptive suit in October seeking clarity about the standards for handling prescriptions, but it has received no answers.
A GREEK LUNCH, DELPHI GREECES
The DOJ complaint also includes more than 190 mentions of “red flags” about suspicious opioid prescriptions. It claims Walmart often didn’t adequately resolve them and sometimes knowingly filled illegitimate prescriptions despite the warnings. But Walmart notes in its lawsuit that the Controlled Substances Act “and its implementing regulations do not include the concept of red flags, let alone identify any particular factors as a red flag.”
The feds try to side-step this problem by claiming that, under the Controlled Substances Act and regulations, “the pharmacist’s conduct must adhere to the usual course of his or her professional practice as a pharmacist.” The complaint argues that catching and resolving “red flags” for opioid prescriptions is “a well-recognized responsibility of a pharmacist in the professional practice of pharmacy,” so “failing to fulfill this responsibility” is a violation of the federal law.
THE SUFFERING OF HUMANITY, GAUTENG SOUTH AFRICA
All of this raises constitutional issues based on a lack of legal standing. A negligence claim like the one alleged here is supposed to have a specific party claiming a specific injury caused by someone specific. Those are typically claims by one private party against another. The government can sue for violations of law, not because someone was negligent. The government’s claims of Controlled Substances Act violations are so general that they seem contrived to add some violation of the law.
In effect, DOJ is asking the federal court to overrule state law in favor of informal federal guidance and a vague notion of pharmaceutical best practices. This harassment was typical of the Obama era but it’s especially disappointing from the Trump Justice Department. The Biden Administration will be happy to run with this prosecutorial abuse.”
…..from The Presumption of Guilt, the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., …”I examine the race and class dimensions of the Gates arrest by looking at how other successful, prosperous, and noteworthy African American men (who are by no means alone in experiencing problems of racial profiling) have grappled with a wide range of encounters not only with police but with countless everyday citizens and found themselves being judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.“…..
Norman J Clement, Aaron Howard, Lynn Michelle Clark, Rick Fertil demand the return of our DEA pharmacy Control Substance Registrations Immediately.
THE RAW TRUTH ON AMERICA’S SO-CALLED “WAR ON DRUGS”
THE US WAR ON DRUGS IS A RACE WAR (CASTE) PRESIDENT BIDEN MUST SEEK TO END
The United States “War On Drugs” has been a targeted race war (a targeted color caste war) and President Joseph Biden must seek its end by shutting down the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and move towards formatted policies of life-time treatment of chronic chemical addiction disease and there will be “No Easy Fix.” (4),(22),(23),(24)
These authors request President Biden and his upcoming administration begin with an extensive oversight of 50 years of failed drug policies based on truth and reconciliation or we are guaranteed to undermine our Countries future.
THE INTERSECTIONALITY OF COMPLACENT BEHAVIOR IN MEDICINE
This article examines the intersectionality of conflict between Medical-Healthcare practitioners such as physicians, dentists, pharmacists, and Federal Drug Law Enforcement which has fostered a culture of sidestepping the Constitution and the failure to protect human rights. We further explore the intersectionality of how law and color caste (race) operates and troubling aspects of the dehumanization of patients’ health care, practitioners’ diagnosis, and medical science by DEA/DOJ. More specifically, how professional organizations, journalists, political leaders have been complacent, while the distribution of power has become unequal; what we have ignored we are enabling, and have permitted. (4),(4a)
“WE KNOW WHEN WE ARE BEING LIED TOO”
They have devalued their own professional training standards and medical protocols, education, and accepted their fate out of fear of DOJ/ DEA. They are complacent of DEA behavior, and the redline they’ve pretend to draw in the sand is one always moving backward. Until, some unlikely person(s) within these professions, in the face of these adversities, with grit and determination, scrappy, and unbowed, and whose pens will be mightier than DOJ/DEA’s swords, will stand up and say enough is enough. (4),(4a),(9), *(10), (27)
NARCOTIC ANALGESIC MEDICATIONS OR OPIOIDS!
For many physicians, the prospect of opioid prescriptions evokes a visceral reaction that is perhaps unique among medications. While other commonly prescribed medications that do not induce such feelings may be arguably more toxic or have narrower therapeutic indices (e.g. insulin or digoxin), the risks associated with long-term narcotic analgesic medications use for pain from conditions other than cancer should not be underestimated. (17),(23)
UNDERSTANDING MULTIMODAL THERAPIES IN RE-EVALUATING PAIN MANAGEMENT
The development of tolerance, the potential for abuse and misuse, and a lack of understanding as to the indications for use all contribute to physician angst. Over the last 2 decades, changing perspectives in the U.S. regarding narcotic analgesic medications, {“opioids”} along with synergistic drug combinations such as Cox inhibitors, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressant prescriptions, {so called “cocktails”} have followed advances in basic science, as well as hard-learned clinical experience. (17),(25)
Due to the complexity of pain, such as Nociceptive Pain, Inflammatory Pain, Neuropathic Pain, etc., patients are often prescribed multiple analgesic drug classes resulting in multiple oral dosages a day. Accordingly, ” If one can stop or reduce peripheral sensitization, (outside pain) then one can stop or reduce central sensitization (central pain) to and from the spinal cord and brain.” The World Health Organization, reported in 2003 “complexity of regimen” is 1 of 4 reasons for non-compliance,” these are the challenges of Pain Management. (25)
Pain management, “is a specialty that is treated by in large by General Practitioners, Dentistry, and Pharmacist on the frontlines, and Education is warranted.” (25)
THE DRUG WARS AND COLOR CASTE
Dan Baum, writer for Harper Magazine reported April 2016, an interview he conducted with Watergate conspirator John Ehrlichman, who served as Nixon’s Domestic Policy Adviser, Ehrlichment explained, the purpose behind the Nixon’s War on Drugs:
The Richard M.Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. Do you understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.” (1),(2),(12)
HOOVER AND NIXON
J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI stated “the greatest threat to the American Society was Negroes becoming organized,” thus he throughout his 52 years conducted his agency campaign of surveillance of all black folk, ” Just Being Black Was Enough to Get Yourself Spied On by J Edgar Hoover’s FBI,” according to Betty Medsger, January 22, 2014 article in The Nation Magazine, Racism and Discrimination. (8),(19)
JIM CROW
Given the times of massive oversight of the FBI, the Nixon administration as a matter of convenience chose the new reconstituted DEA to supplant the role of the mission of Hoover’s FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had been traditionally used to undermine and destroy black people, arrest their leaders, and disrupt every form of their commerce. The DEA supplanted the same historical mission as the FBI. (19)
“The US ‘War on Drugs’ has had a profound role in reinforcing racial hierarchies. Although Black Americans are no more likely than Whites to use illicit drugs, they are 6–10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses. Meanwhile, a very different system for responding to the drug use of Whites has emerged.” (3)(4)
According to Erick Sherman, the drug war was an excuse to lock Blacks (of the subordinate caste) and protestors up:
“The realization that Nixon turned the U.S. justice system into a private army to punish those who didn’t love him for too many good reasons is shocking. That this is news today, and that the mechanisms once started as a personal vendetta continue to crush people born to the “wrong” parents, should be nauseating.“
Erick Sherman Writes:
“And so, the United States government developed a major policy, with massive implications on spending and societal impact, to declare that two classes of people should be destroyed, locked up if possible, for the convenience and pleasure of people in power. The justice system was warped into a private enforcer.”
DEA: THE GOVERNMENTS MOBSTERS
THE DEA HAS BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO INVESTIGATE PEOPLE PROTESTING GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH
So the War on Drugs in America has been one high hoax, at its inception. The agency was formed on a fraudulent narrative to undermine black intellectual leadership and liberal-minded progressive sympathetic white folks. The DEA was tasked with classifying drugs and establishing controls on them. DEA’s mission is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States and bring to the criminal and civil justice system of the United States, or any other competent jurisdiction, those organizations and principal members of organizations involved in the growing of marijuana.
DOJ/DEA has instead ignored scientific evidence and blocked research into the medical benefits of certain drugs, including marijuana. While Black pharmacies are targeted as if they are the initiator of diversionary practices. We as Pharmacists, Dentist challenge the DEA and DOJ by changing our expectations and beliefs about our God-given talents about ourselves, with no limitation to exist on this planet as human beings.
Jack Folson:
”The Government attacks your ability to generate income until you succumb to their criminal activity “
The DEA has acted as an unregulated medical agency policing medical facilities and medical practices without legal standards and grounds and the DEA Administration Court System body, which operates within the Department of Justice (DOJ), like a runaway unconstitutionally entity, and immune to all laws of governance to all courts within the Justice System. (26)
Most importantly the entire premise of the Opioid Epidemic to which the American Government has wasted billions, and billions of dollars have rested upon seriously flawed foundations and whose pathophysiology fails to sync with science.
!. How many years has Pain an Anxiety been around?
2. How many years has the DEA been around?
3. How does one legislate Pain and Anxiety?
The DEA and the DOJ have concocted their own reality based on Junk science and so-called experts lacking in the various discipline aiding an abetting in DEA’s fictitious reality resulting in undermining medical treatment and contributing to enormous disparities in the delivery of healthcare to the populations in need of treatment. Notwithstanding their nefarious actions has defrauded the American taxpayer out of billions of dollars (8) (9)
DEA RAID AT PRONTO PHARMACY AUGUST 29, 2019
DEA USED TO TARGET AND DISRUPTED PROTESTORS OF GEORGE FLOYD DEATHAND OPERATING OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THEIR MISSION
According to Frank Figliuzzi, former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation states:
”We are in trouble the DEA has been given permission investigate people protesting George Floyd’s death” (HEAR BELOW VIDEO FRANK FIGLIUZZI/XM-127- STEPHANIE MILLER SHOW)
“The Justice Department gave the agency the temporary power to enforce any federal crime committed as a result of the protests over the death of George Floyd”
JAILS, PRISONS, AND DRUGS: THE TARGETING OF YOUNG BLACK MALES
THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE (JUSTICE)
JOHN CONYERS (D) DETROIT, CHAIRMAN GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE 1990
During the 1990 Congressional Black Caucus Weekend, a discussion lead by Professor Dr. Ron Daniels. The panel discussed the question of crime and drugs in relation to young black men. Topics discussed included the amount of money spent on law enforcement versus crime prevention and does race influences the death penalty. See link below Chairman John Conyers (D) Detroit, “Jail, Prisons, and Drugs: The Targeting Young Black Males,” Omnibus Crime Bill, 1990.
PAIN MANAGEMENT: A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTDEA’S PAIN FRAUD SCAM: THE BRENNAN, CARR REPORT et al, 2007
Frank Brennan, Dan Carr, and Michael Cousins et. al., ” provide us with a treatise on the consequences and causes of neglect of pain in medicine. The bioethical principle of justice, seeking the equitable distribution of health care, is the greatest challenge to inadequate pain management worldwide. However admirable the ideal of pain management as a universal human right, the reality is a world in which massive resource discrepancies preclude the fulfillment of such a right (6)(93). Thus, unequal access to pain relief is but one example of the broader problem of health disparities that arise due to inequities of socio-economic status or from membership in a minority racial or ethnic group.”(6),(29)
” Unfortunately, the law has not moved all in one direction. In fact, after some promising developments in 2001 and early 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) took steps backward by withdrawing the consensus document described by Brennan et al. and issuing policy statements that went in the opposite direction. Even the National Association of Attorneys General expressed concern that “state and federal policies are diverging with respect to the relative emphasis on ensuring the availability of prescription pain mediations to those who need them.” (28)
HUMAN RIGHT WATCH” MAGAZINE WRITES:
Human Rights Watch investigated parallel construction from April 2016 to October 2017 using interviews, court records, documents disclosed by the government, and media reports. In this report we detail how the practice:
” Is a technique that, the evidence suggests, is employed frequently and possibly even daily;
Has roots in strained and untested government interpretations of US Supreme Court and other cases—cases that in fact have never explicitly provided a license for officials to deliberately avoid telling defendants the truth about investigative methods in order to conceal practices that might raise legal concerns;
May be employed by a range of federal agencies responsible for investigating suspected violations of criminal and immigration law;
In particular, is employed by a part of the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) known as the Special Operations Division (“SOD”), at least part of which has been nicknamed “the Dark Side” and which the evidence suggests is responsible for passing tips to various law enforcement bodies with the expectation that those tips will not be revealed in court;
Regularly relies on pretextual stops and searches of vehicles—an exercise of police powers that is sometimes known as a “wall stop” or “whisper stop” and that risks becoming unlawfully coercive;”
An investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General regarding “the DEA’s use of administrative subpoenas to obtain broad collections of data or information,” including “the use of ‘parallel construction’ or other techniques to protect the confidentiality of these programs,” remained ongoing the time of writing. (28)
MOTHER WINNIE MADIKIZELA-MANDELLA, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
DEA’S CAMPAIGN OF TYRANNY TO CONTROL THE FIELD OF MEDICINE OF YOUR THRU FEAR AND INTIMIDATION HOW DID WE GET HERE???
The United States Justice Department along with the Us Drug Enforcement Administration has created a slippery slope of analysts to justify moving in under public health threat, probable cause a simple close examination of the Order to Show Cause (OTSC) or record shows no the warrants to be Fraud defected. The question becomes how is it they been able to get away with this for so long. (28)
PROSECUTION OF PHYSICIANS FOR OPIOID PRESCRIBING
According to Brennan, Carr, and Cousins et al, July 2007 article:
” Early in the present decade, two important developments occurred in the United States. First, concern about diversion and illicit use of prescription opioids increased as instances of OxyContin misuse and abuse (some fatal) became more common. Second, a consensus emerged between pain clinicians and opioid regulators that the twin public policies of adequate pain management and restriction of illicit opioid use should be pursued concurrently and with mutual respect. This “doctrine of balance” reached its high watermark in August 2004, when the DEA posted a series of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers about the use of medications, particularly opioids, in pain management, on its website. ” (6)
“These FAQs were prepared by a blue-ribbon panel of clinicians and regulators. Three months later, concurrent with its prosecution of a physician for an inappropriate opioid prescription, the DEA abruptly withdrew its support for this consensus statement and removed the FAQs from its website. To pain clinicians, a major inconsistency had emerged between best clinical practice and the potential for regulatory scrutiny and prosecution for opioid prescription.” (6)
“After years of reassurance by the DEA that legitimate, appropriate opioid prescription would not attract liability, its 2004 actions had a chilling effect. In late 2006 the DEA made a concession to clinicians’ anxieties (and fears by their patients of decreased access to medications) by proposing to amend its regulations to allow physicians to provide patients with multiple prescriptions of the same schedule II (controlled) substance to be filled sequentially to provide up to a 90-day supply. As of early 2007, the FAQs have not been re-posted and the physician in question remains imprisoned. This and other, less well-known prosecutions of physicians who prescribed unusually large quantities of opioids suggest inconsistencies between the educational efforts of some government agencies to encourage the appropriate prescribing of pain medications, and prosecution by other agencies of physicians who do so.”(6)
” Most opioid-related deaths involve illicit substances, such as heroin and fentanyl. overdose deaths related to prescription opioids have both declined significantly in recent years. Nevertheless, the federal government has committed to further restricting the availability of opioid pain medications.”
” To that end, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has implemented an aggressive effort to ASAM’s affiliate, the Tennessee Society of Addiction Medicine physicians have been charged with a crime. prescription opioid medication. shut down rogue prescribers and pharmacists. raided, searched, and investigated a past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM), the editor-in-chief of the Practical Pain Management medical journal, the immediate past president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and others.”
“The fear of DEA action, in particular, may lead doctors to avoid patients with chronic pain (although there is more to that avoidance than concerns about the DEA) and may steer those who do treat chronic pain patients with controlled substances to undertreat their pain. However, the practice management techniques described in the medical board guidelines will help to reduce those risks considerably.” (6)
” AND THE LORD INSTRUCTED PAUL, DO NOT BE AFRAID, KEEP ON SPEAKING, FOR I AM WITH YOU”
JOSEPH L.WEBSTER, SR., MD, MBA, FACP, BS. PHARMACY
” The orderly flow of a prescription “from” the doctor to the patient – via the Pharmacist – clearly outlines where the ‘diagnosis’ has to come from. It is statutorily the purview of the pharmacist to ‘inspect and assure’ that the drug that is being given is safe and has no known incompatibilities with the patient and its holistic environment.”
DX; MSI.26 M48.0, NONACUTE PAIN
“It is not the purview nor is the pharmacist trained to ‘challenge the diagnosis’ of the physician and to do so verbally or otherwise with the patient. It erodes the ‘doctor-patient’ relationship and destroys the ‘confidence’ of the patient in his/her physician. At the very least it is ‘unethical’ and may very well be a HIPPA violation and beneath the standard of care as a pharmacist. “
“Any healthcare provider that is licensed to ‘prescribe’ is governed by the set of conditions and circumstances under which a prescription can be written. Thus it is illegal to write a prescription for a person that the prescriber has not conducted the ‘chain of authority’ that would qualify him/her to write a prescription: history and physical examination, formulation of a diagnosis, and discussing such with the patient as well as the proposed manner of treatment in a culturally sensitive and ethically appropriate manner; and provision of an opportunity for the patient to ‘question and discuss alternative forms of treatment; etc.”
“Once the provider has met all of the aforementioned and other ‘requirements to write a prescription, then and then ONLY should a healthcare practitioner write a prescription. Furthermore, as stated above, a pharmacist IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO WRITE A CONTROL PRESCRIPTIONS by any of the regulatory boards of health.”
WE ARE TO BE UNSEEN
” It is my professional opinion that the pharmacist in question had ‘no reason’ and more importantly the pharmacist had ‘no power’ to question or interrogate each provider on ‘each prescription’ that is received as long as the ‘safety, efficacy and convenience’ of the medications being prescribed meet the standards of Medication Dispensing. Any given medication can be and certainly will be given for multiple different diagnoses and it is not even feasible for the pharmacist to ‘contact and question’ each and every diagnosis.”(30)
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AFFIRMED CDC NARCOTIC ANALGESIC AND ANXIETY GUIDELINES TO BE INCORRECT
ADDICTION, ABUSE, AND MISUSE
The distinction between tolerance and addiction should be emphasized; most opioid-tolerant patients do not exhibit signs of addiction. Once again, individual variability characterizes the development of addiction, making outcome prediction difficult [3], but some features are associated with increased risk for addiction: increasing dose requirement, younger age, preexisting mental health disorders, and prior substance abuse [4]. Significantly, aberrant behaviors have been observed in nearly a quarter of patients taking opioids for noncancer low back pain in the U.S. [5]. The current widespread use of opioids for chronic noncancer pain created a need for vigilance in identifying patients who are abusing (unlawful use or use despite harm to the user) or misusing (use other than as prescribed) opioid medication. (17)
NIH STUDY 2017: WHITE OPIOIDS, PHARMACEUTICAL RACE AND THE WAR ON DRUGS THAT WASN’T
According to White opioids: Pharmaceutical race and the war on drugs that wasn’t Julie Netherland and Helena Hansen Published online 2017 Jun 28. doi: 10.1057/biosoc.2015.46PMCID: PMC5501419 NIHMSID: NIHMS752948 PMID: 28690668
“In one of the only studies to explicitly look at how drug policy is used to carve out White spaces exempt from punitive more approaches, Lassiter (2015) takes a historical look at the roots of the White opioid crisis of today. Looking back to marijuana policies of the 1970s, he states: “exemptions created for white middle-class participants in the underground market-place were not merely epiphenomenal but rather constitutive of the expansion of the carceral state (p. 127)”. The drug war operates because of a reciprocal relationship between the criminalization of blackness and the decriminalization of whiteness.”
” Lassiter notes that, when the Rockefeller Drug Laws instituted harsh mandatory minimums, White (dominant caste) suburban youth found themselves facing significant jail time for low-level marijuana possession. Parents of white suburban youth banded together to create policy changes that exempted marijuana from the Rockefeller Drug Laws, essentially decriminalizing low-level possession in some jurisdictions. This was possible, in part, because of the racial dynamics and the portrayal of White youth (dominant caste) as sympathetic victims of the organized narcotics trade. “(4)
THE DEA COURTS OF INJUSTICE
The DEA operates a separate judicial tribunal system that has gone unregulated and avoided the scrutiny of the Congress of the United States. This is in reality why Walmart et al (amicus curiae) have filed preemptive strike briefs COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORYRELIEF against both DOJ/ DEA because it fears disruption of commerce. (17)
WHY WALMART FILED A PREEMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST DEA/DOJ AND WHY WALMART WILL WIN
” In its Complaint, Walmart Inc. (“Walmart”) explained why it, and the pharmacy industry more broadly, need declaratory relief clarifying the scope of its obligations under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”) and its regulations. The Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) and its parent agency, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), are seeking to distract from their own failures in combating the opioid crisis by shifting responsibility to pharmacists who fill prescriptions issued by state-licensed and DEA-registered doctors.” (18),(20),(21)
” Unsupported by statute or regulation, Defendants have invented a slew of purported obligations, all driving toward their broader position that pharmacists and pharmacies must rigorously second-guess doctors’ judgments before filling their prescriptions. At the same time, pharmacists and pharmacies face conflicting guidance and legal risk from state regulators, doctors, and patients who strenuously object to what they view as an invasion of the doctor-patient relationship and unauthorized practice of medicine.” (18) (31) (32)
UNITED STATES SURGEON GENERAL JEROME ADAMS AND HIS BROTHER: SO WHY IS PHILLIP IN PRISON AND NOT IN TREATMENT???
US SURGEON GENERAL JEROME ADAMS
At the Behavioral Health and Opioids Conference, held April 26, 2018, United States Surgeon General Jerome Adams spoke of two personal tragedies. His brother Philip serving a 10-year sentence for drug addiction. So why is Phillip in prison? Because Phillip belongs to the subordinate caste in America and similar to the targetted Black own pharmacies he is low hanging fruit and a quota has to be met.
PART – 2 COMING SOON
FOR NOW, YOU ARE WITHIN THE NORMS
A DEFIANT BLACK WOMAN WITH CHILD, FALOREIA,TRIKALA, GREECE
Such is how Ms. Breonna Taylor was murdered having been erroneously targeted in an illegal raid by law enforcement. These types of illegal targeting occur too frequently and have remained hidden from the Public. Congressional Oversight must expand to the illegal activities of the DEA, Now.
4. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, April 2020, pg. 47, pg. , Wilkerson, Isabelwilkerson.com
a. Gretchen Sorin and Rick Burns, “African American: Driving While Black,” rebroadcast Nov 26, 2020 “fundamental fact space and mobility from the very start have been unequally distributed in American life by race.” XM-126, interview Laura Coates Esq., discussing intersectionality.https://videopress.com/embed/xyGXE7mv?preloadContent=metadata&hd=1THE LAURA COATES SHOW XM-126
5. Yihequan or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists: fought courageously against Westerners mainly British (foreigner) who use opium to impose there will upon the People and resources of China, resulting in what is paraphrase as a “Century of Humiliation, which was overcome by Mao SeTung, Cho Enli, and many other heroes who sacrifice their lives to erase this foreign stain from their soil,1948 and rebuild their great culture.
6. Brennan F, Carr DB, Cousins M. Pain management: a fundamental human right. Anesth Analg 2007;105:205–21.
” African-Americans, Hoover’s largest targeted group, didn’t have to be perceived as having liberal, or even radical or subversive, ideas to merit being spied on. Nor was it necessary for them to engage in violent behavior to become a watched person. Being black was enough.”
Wikipedia: Justice Department- – Jack Keeney
It is not unrelated, that the senior career official in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, who oversees the targeting and prosecution of public officials, is John Keeney–a man who got his start working in the Justice Department’s Internal Security Division in 1951, working hand-in-glove with Hoover’s FBI. Think of it: Keeney spent the 1930s first two {decades} of his career working side-by-side with J. Edgar Hoover; Hoover has been dead for almost 30 years, but Jack Keeney is still a top official in Justice Department headquarters.
9. “Driving While Black” film documentary PBS/2020, Gretchen Sorin, Ph.D., Ric Burns, interview Laura Coate’s Show, XM 126 radio, Urban View, Monday thru Friday, 10:00 AM to !2:00 noon.
10. Video, THE BLACK PHARMACIST (Pronto Pharmacy) “Low Hanging Fruit,” Tampa, Fl August 2020https://videopress.com/embed/bQli8Wub?preloadContent=metadata&hd=1LOW HANGING FRUIT
3. Coyle N. Opioids, cancer pain, quality of life and quality of death: patient narratives and a clinician’s comments. In Meldrum ML, ed. Opioids and pain relief: a historical perspective. Seattle: IASP Press, 2003.
25. LP 3, Network, pg. 15, 17,18,19, KenSpidel, RPh., PharmD FIACP, FACA,Pharmacotherapeutic Expert in pain management, hormone therapy, non-sterile, and sterile compounding Retired Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Findlay Served as a surveyor and accreditation expert for ACHC/PCAB Served as multi-term president of the National Home Infusions Association (NHIA), Branvold & Carvalho, 2014 World Health Organization, 2003 Pain Presentation_Slide Handout.pdf
Miguel de la Garza, MD, DABA, DAPM Board certified physician who practices multidisciplinary interventional pain management in 4 offices in the Tampa Bay area Performs interventional pain procedures, specializing in minimally invasive surgical decompression of herniated disks and spinal stenosis, implantable intrathecal pump, spinal cord stimulation, and peripheral nerve stimulation. Diplomat, American Board of Anesthesiology. Diplomat, American Board of Pain Medicine.
From the Tenet Endowed Chair in Health Law and Ethics, Center for Health Law Studies, Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri. Address correspondence to Sandra H. Johnson, JD, LLM, Tenet Endowed Chair in Health Law and Ethics, Center for Health Law Studies, Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University, 3700 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63108. Address e-mail to johnsosh@slu.edu.
” THE EFFECTIVE REMOVAL OF BLACK-OWNED PHARMACIES IN ONE NEIGHBORHOOD IN CHICAGO: DEMONSTRATES THE DANGER ON HOW BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER IN AMERICA WHEN WE FAIL TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT “
What we can observe from this above video broadcast by CNN on Pharmacy deserts in this west Chicago neighborhood of Austin, is no accident. This is the by-product of long term targeting of black-owned pharmacies by DEA and the State of Illinois, Under the Guides of Good Faith Dispensing which are being very loosely interpreted by State and Federal Agents. They have been able to shut down nearly all independently own Black-pharmacies.
Just being Black is enough to get one inspected despite the fact they may have done nothing wrong. Some black pharmacist-owners did prison-time for the most minuscule violations, which non-black owners would have been issued a warning. While for many other Black Pharmacist, the constant harassment by regulatory officials was more than enough for them to close their stores.
REPRESENTING ZULU CULTURE, LESEDI CULTURAL VILLAGE, GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA
One pharmacist, who has chosen to remain anonymous stated, she had been in business near that same area for several years and her pharmacy only carried Tylenol #3 (medication combines with 30 mugs of codeine). However, when the State of Illinois Board of Regulation Inspector came to her establishment he questioned the pharmacy owner as to why she didn’t carry Oxycontin? She explained to him the physicians, in the area don’t write for that type of control narcotic.
The inspector immediately demanded she begin ordering Oxycontin, which she then claimed sat on her shelf for months until the next time the same inspector returned; only to site her for having “excessive Oxycontin” in her store. The constant inspections and violations got so out of control they were able to undermine her Illinois Public Aid contract and she was forced to close down. Many Black Pharmacists will agree these occurrences are unlikely to happen to a non-white pharmacist.
Practicing Pharmacy while black is real, and the results are the destruction of overall healthcare in our predominately black neighborhoods. We have been frequently reporting on the DEA using these and other types of systemic racist targeting and we have been demanding Congressional Oversight from the Sub-committee on Judiciary,Congressional Government Operations Committee, Sub-committee on Health and the Environment, the resulting warnings are being reported in our blog youarewithinthenorms.com. We demand Congressional hearings and media, exposing these injustices and how it affects our overall healthcare and the passing down of generational wealth (stratification economics).
Now, the DEA has targeted Wal-Mart, this too is a very concerning injustice by the DEA/DOJ and must be exposed. Wal-Mart and these independently own Black Pharmacies, are Pharmacist, Businesses, in dispensing of prescriptions/control medication written by healthcare practitioners for specific diseases states of their patients. More importantly, the DEA has shown absolutely NO proved these prescriptions written by licensed practitioners having diagnosed with a disease condition are illegitimate or they are being diverted for non-medical use.
Carol Anderson Ph.D., is a Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Professor Anderson’s research and teaching focus on public policy; particularly the ways that domestic and international policies intersect through the issues of race, justice, and equality in the United States. Dr. Anderson was interviewed, June 2020 by PBS Journalist Christiane Amanpour and she pointed out:
——– Dr. CAROL ANDERSON:
” It was the basis of my book, ‘White Rage.’
“In fact, looking at that phenomenon and looking at it via policy that whenever African-Americans make a significant gain toward their citizenship rights, you see a wave of policies coming up to undercut those rights.“
FEBRUARY 11, 1966, THE FORCE REMOVAL, DISTRICT-6 BEGINS, FROM DISTRICT 6 MUSEUM, CAPE TOWN, SA
“We see it coming out of the civil war where African-Americans are no longer property where you get the rise of a Supreme court that is just the visceral rating the amendments that dealt with the Baptist of servitude of slavery, citizenship, and the right to vote.“
“And we see that again coming into the great migration where you had African-Americans fleeing the South and going North and again a wave of laws to block their access and to block their aspirations for decent housing, good schools. And the Brown decision that ended Plessy v. Ferguson separate but equal.“
“THE REMOVAL”, DISTRICT-6 MUSEUM, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
“You saw public school systems shutting down across the South so that Black children would not get educated but White children would get funding to go to all-white private academies. And that leads us through the civil rights movement and then to Obama. And it was the backlash against Obama that helps feed the rise of Donald Trump.“
So it behooves us, as we used to say in the church to be able to know those patterns and to not get complicit or complacent in what this incredible moment means as we’re seeing these policies being generated because we know the backlash is coming.”
We Demand hearings from Congress as these activities of Regulatory Agency such as DEA helps to create Pharmacy Deserts and threatens the lives of all of Americans during this Covid pandemic by creating disparity and shortages and the majority of the times which has been done by race.
MR. NOOR EBRIHIM, THE STORY OF HIS FAMILIES REMOVAL, DURING APARTHEID, DISTRICT-6, FEBRUARY 11, 1966 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
CONGRESS MUST TAKE ACTION NOW, TO STOP THESE DEA AND REGULATORY AGENCY ABUSES
” THE EFFECTIVE REMOVAL OF BLACK-OWNED PHARMACIES IN ONE NEIGHBORHOOD IN CHICAGO: DEMONSTRATES THE DANGER ON HOW BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER IN AMERICA WHEN WE FAIL TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT “
What we can observe from this above video broadcast by CNN on Pharmacy deserts in this west Chicago neighborhood of Austin, is no accident. This is the by-product of long term targeting of black-owned pharmacies by DEA and the State of Illinois, Under the Guides of Good Faith Dispensing which are being very loosely interpreted by State and Federal Agents. They have been able to shut down nearly all independently own Black-pharmacies.
Just being Black is enough to get one inspected despite the fact they may have done nothing wrong. Some black pharmacist-owners did prison-time for the most minuscule violations, which non-black owners would have been issued a warning. While for many other Black Pharmacist, the constant harassment by regulatory officials was more than enough for them to close their stores.
REPRESENTING ZULU CULTURE, LESEDI CULTURAL VILLAGE, GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA
One pharmacist, who has chosen to remain anonymous stated, she had been in business near that same area for several years and her pharmacy only carried Tylenol #3 (medication combines with 30 mugs of codeine). However, when the State of Illinois Board of Regulation Inspector came to her establishment he questioned the pharmacy owner as to why she didn’t carry Oxycontin? She explained to him the physicians, in the area don’t write for that type of control narcotic.
The inspector immediately demanded she begin ordering Oxycontin, which she then claimed sat on her shelf for months until the next time the same inspector returned; only to site her for having “excessive Oxycontin” in her store. The constant inspections and violations got so out of control they were able to undermine her Illinois Public Aid contract and she was forced to close down. Many Black Pharmacists will agree these occurrences are unlikely to happen to a non-white pharmacist.
Practicing Pharmacy while black is real, and the results are the destruction of overall healthcare in our predominately black neighborhoods. We have been frequently reporting on the DEA using these and other types of systemic racist targeting and we have been demanding Congressional Oversight from the Sub-committee on Judiciary,Congressional Government Operations Committee, Sub-committee on Health and the Environment, the resulting warnings are being reported in our blog youarewithinthenorms.com. We demand Congressional hearings and media, exposing these injustices and how it affects our overall healthcare and the passing down of generational wealth (stratification economics).
Now, the DEA has targeted Wal-Mart, this too is a very concerning injustice by the DEA/DOJ and must be exposed. Wal-Mart and these independently own Black Pharmacies, are Pharmacist, Businesses, in dispensing of prescriptions/control medication written by healthcare practitioners for specific diseases states of their patients. More importantly, the DEA has shown absolutely NO proved these prescriptions written by licensed practitioners having diagnosed with a disease condition are illegitimate or they are being diverted for non-medical use.
Carol Anderson Ph.D., is a Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Professor Anderson’s research and teaching focus on public policy; particularly the ways that domestic and international policies intersect through the issues of race, justice, and equality in the United States. Dr. Anderson was interviewed, June 2020 by PBS Journalist Christiane Amanpour and she pointed out:
——– Dr. CAROL ANDERSON:
” It was the basis of my book, ‘White Rage.’
“In fact, looking at that phenomenon and looking at it via policy that whenever African-Americans make a significant gain toward their citizenship rights, you see a wave of policies coming up to undercut those rights.“
FEBRUARY 11, 1966, THE FORCE REMOVAL, DISTRICT-6 BEGINS, FROM DISTRICT 6 MUSEUM, CAPE TOWN, SA
“We see it coming out of the civil war where African-Americans are no longer property where you get the rise of a Supreme court that is just the visceral rating the amendments that dealt with the Baptist of servitude of slavery, citizenship, and the right to vote.“
“And we see that again coming into the great migration where you had African-Americans fleeing the South and going North and again a wave of laws to block their access and to block their aspirations for decent housing, good schools. And the Brown decision that ended Plessy v. Ferguson separate but equal.“
“THE REMOVAL”, DISTRICT-6 MUSEUM, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
“You saw public school systems shutting down across the South so that Black children would not get educated but White children would get funding to go to all-white private academies. And that leads us through the civil rights movement and then to Obama. And it was the backlash against Obama that helps feed the rise of Donald Trump.“
So it behooves us, as we used to say in the church to be able to know those patterns and to not get complicit or complacent in what this incredible moment means as we’re seeing these policies being generated because we know the backlash is coming.”
We Demand hearings from Congress as these activities of Regulatory Agency such as DEA helps to create Pharmacy Deserts and threatens the lives of all of Americans during this Covid pandemic by creating disparity and shortages and the majority of the times which has been done by race.
MR. NOOR EBRIHIM, THE STORY OF HIS FAMILIES REMOVAL,DURING APARTHEID, DISTRICT-6, FEBRUARY 11, 1966 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
CONGRESS MUST TAKE ACTION NOW, TO STOP THESE DEA AND REGULATORY AGENCY ABUSES
…..from The Presumption of Guilt, the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., …”I examine the race and class dimensions of the Gates arrest by looking at how other successful, prosperous, and noteworthy African American men (who are by no means alone in experiencing problems of racial profiling) have grappled with a wide range of encounters not only with police but with countless everyday citizens and found themselves being judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.“…..
Norman J Clement, Aaron Howard, Rick Fertil demand the return of our DEA pharmacy Control Substance Registrations Immediately.
THE RAW TRUTH ON AMERICA’S SO-CALLED “WAR ON DRUGS”
THE US WAR ON DRUGS IS A RACE WAR (CASTE) PRESIDENT BIDEN MUST SEEK TO END
The United States “War On Drugs” has been a targeted race war (a targeted color caste war) and President Joseph Biden must seek its end by shutting down the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and move towards formatted policies of life-time treatment of chronic chemical addiction disease and there will be “No Easy Fix.” (4),(22),(23),(24)
These authors request President Biden and his upcoming administration begin with an extensive oversight of 50 years of failed drug policies based on truth and reconciliation or we are guaranteed to undermine our Countries future.
THE INTERSECTIONALITY OF COMPLACENT BEHAVIOR IN MEDICINE
This article examines the intersectionality of conflict between Medical-Healthcare practitioners such as physicians, dentists, pharmacists, and Federal Drug Law Enforcement which has fostered a culture of sidestepping the Constitution and the failure to protect human rights. We further explore the intersectionality of how law and color caste (race) operates and troubling aspects of the dehumanization of patients’ health care, practitioners’ diagnosis, and medical science by DEA/DOJ. More specifically, how professional organizations, journalists, political leaders have been complacent, while the distribution of power has become unequal; what we have ignored we are enabling, and have permitted. (4),(4a)
“WE KNOW WHEN WE ARE BEING LIED TOO”
They have devalued their own professional training standards and medical protocols, education, and accepted their fate out of fear of DOJ/ DEA. They are complacent of DEA behavior, and the redline they’ve pretend to draw in the sand is one always moving backward. Until, some unlikely person(s) within these professions, in the face of these adversities, with grit and determination, scrappy, and unbowed, and whose pens will be mightier than DOJ/DEA’s swords, will stand up and say enough is enough. (4),(4a),(9), *(10), (27)
NARCOTIC ANALGESIC MEDICATIONS OR OPIOIDS!
For many physicians, the prospect of opioid prescriptions evokes a visceral reaction that is perhaps unique among medications. While other commonly prescribed medications that do not induce such feelings may be arguably more toxic or have narrower therapeutic indices (e.g. insulin or digoxin), the risks associated with long-term narcotic analgesic medications use for pain from conditions other than cancer should not be underestimated. (17),(23)
UNDERSTANDING MULTIMODAL THERAPIES IN RE-EVALUATING PAIN MANAGEMENT
The development of tolerance, the potential for abuse and misuse, and a lack of understanding as to the indications for use all contribute to physician angst. Over the last 2 decades, changing perspectives in the U.S. regarding narcotic analgesic medications, {“opioids”} along with synergistic drug combinations such as Cox inhibitors, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressant prescriptions, {so called “cocktails”} have followed advances in basic science, as well as hard-learned clinical experience. (17),(25)
Due to the complexity of pain, such as Nociceptive Pain, Inflammatory Pain, Neuropathic Pain, etc., patients are often prescribed multiple analgesic drug classes resulting in multiple oral dosages a day. Accordingly, ” If one can stop or reduce peripheral sensitization, (outside pain) then one can stop or reduce central sensitization (central pain) to and from the spinal cord and brain.” The World Health Organization, reported in 2003 “complexity of regimen” is 1 of 4 reasons for non-compliance,” these are the challenges of Pain Management. (25)
Pain management, “is a specialty that is treated by in large by General Practitioners, Dentistry, and Pharmacist on the frontlines, and Education is warranted.” (25)
THE DRUG WARS AND COLOR CASTE
Dan Baum, writer for Harper Magazine reported April 2016, an interview he conducted with Watergate conspirator John Ehrlichman, who served as Nixon’s Domestic Policy Adviser, Ehrlichment explained, the purpose behind the Nixon’s War on Drugs:
The Richard M.Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. Do you understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.” (1),(2),(12)
HOOVER AND NIXON
J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI stated “the greatest threat to the American Society was Negroes becoming organized,” thus he throughout his 52 years conducted his agency campaign of surveillance of all black folk, ” Just Being Black Was Enough to Get Yourself Spied On by J Edgar Hoover’s FBI,” according to Betty Medsger, January 22, 2014 article in The Nation Magazine, Racism and Discrimination. (8),(19)
JIM CROW
Given the times of massive oversight of the FBI, the Nixon administration as a matter of convenience chose the new reconstituted DEA to supplant the role of the mission of Hoover’s FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had been traditionally used to undermine and destroy black people, arrest their leaders, and disrupt every form of their commerce. The DEA supplanted the same historical mission as the FBI. (19)
“The US ‘War on Drugs’ has had a profound role in reinforcing racial hierarchies. Although Black Americans are no more likely than Whites to use illicit drugs, they are 6–10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses. Meanwhile, a very different system for responding to the drug use of Whites has emerged.” (3)(4)
According to Erick Sherman, the drug war was an excuse to lock Blacks (of the subordinate caste) and protestors up:
“The realization that Nixon turned the U.S. justice system into a private army to punish those who didn’t love him for too many good reasons is shocking. That this is news today, and that the mechanisms once started as a personal vendetta continue to crush people born to the “wrong” parents, should be nauseating.“
Erick Sherman Writes:
“And so, the United States government developed a major policy, with massive implications on spending and societal impact, to declare that two classes of people should be destroyed, locked up if possible, for the convenience and pleasure of people in power. The justice system was warped into a private enforcer.”
DEA: THE GOVERNMENTS MOBSTERS
THE DEA HAS BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO INVESTIGATE PEOPLE PROTESTING GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH
So the War on Drugs in America has been one high hoax, at its inception. The agency was formed on a fraudulent narrative to undermine black intellectual leadership and liberal-minded progressive sympathetic white folks. The DEA was tasked with classifying drugs and establishing controls on them. DEA’s mission is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States and bring to the criminal and civil justice system of the United States, or any other competent jurisdiction, those organizations and principal members of organizations involved in the growing of marijuana.
DOJ/DEA has instead ignored scientific evidence and blocked research into the medical benefits of certain drugs, including marijuana. While Black pharmacies are targeted as if they are the initiator of diversionary practices. We as Pharmacists, Dentist challenge the DEA and DOJ by changing our expectations and beliefs about our God-given talents about ourselves, with no limitation to exist on this planet as human beings.
Jack Folson:
”The Government attacks your ability to generate income until you succumb to their criminal activity “
The DEA has acted as an unregulated medical agency policing medical facilities and medical practices without legal standards and grounds and the DEA Administration Court System body, which operates within the Department of Justice (DOJ), like a runaway unconstitutionally entity, and immune to all laws of governance to all courts within the Justice System. (26)
Most importantly the entire premise of the Opioid Epidemic to which the American Government has wasted billions, and billions of dollars have rested upon seriously flawed foundations and whose pathophysiology fails to sync with science.
!. How many years has Pain an Anxiety been around?
2. How many years has the DEA been around?
3. How does one legislate Pain and Anxiety?
The DEA and the DOJ have concocted their own reality based on Junk science and so-called experts lacking in the various discipline aiding an abetting in DEA’s fictitious reality resulting in undermining medical treatment and contributing to enormous disparities in the delivery of healthcare to the populations in need of treatment. Notwithstanding their nefarious actions has defrauded the American taxpayer out of billions of dollars (8) (9)
DEA RAID AT PRONTO PHARMACY AUGUST 29, 2019
DEA USED TO TARGET AND DISRUPTED PROTESTORS OF GEORGE FLOYD DEATHAND OPERATING OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THEIR MISSION
According to Frank Figliuzzi, former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation states:
”We are in trouble the DEA has been given permission investigate people protesting George Floyd’s death” (HEAR BELOW VIDEO FRANK FIGLIUZZI/XM-127- STEPHANIE MILLER SHOW)
“The Justice Department gave the agency the temporary power to enforce any federal crime committed as a result of the protests over the death of George Floyd”
JAILS, PRISONS, AND DRUGS: THE TARGETING OF YOUNG BLACK MALES
THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE (JUSTICE)
JOHN CONYERS (D) DETROIT, CHAIRMAN GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE 1990
During the 1990 Congressional Black Caucus Weekend, a discussion lead by Professor Dr. Ron Daniels. The panel discussed the question of crime and drugs in relation to young black men. Topics discussed included the amount of money spent on law enforcement versus crime prevention and does race influences the death penalty. See link below Chairman John Conyers (D) Detroit, “Jail, Prisons, and Drugs: The Targeting Young Black Males,” Omnibus Crime Bill, 1990.
PAIN MANAGEMENT: A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTDEA’S PAIN FRAUD SCAM: THE BRENNAN, CARR REPORT et al, 2007
Frank Brennan, Dan Carr, and Michael Cousins et. al., ” provide us with a treatise on the consequences and causes of neglect of pain in medicine. The bioethical principle of justice, seeking the equitable distribution of health care, is the greatest challenge to inadequate pain management worldwide. However admirable the ideal of pain management as a universal human right, the reality is a world in which massive resource discrepancies preclude the fulfillment of such a right (6)(93). Thus, unequal access to pain relief is but one example of the broader problem of health disparities that arise due to inequities of socio-economic status or from membership in a minority racial or ethnic group.”(6),(29)
” Unfortunately, the law has not moved all in one direction. In fact, after some promising developments in 2001 and early 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) took steps backward by withdrawing the consensus document described by Brennan et al. and issuing policy statements that went in the opposite direction. Even the National Association of Attorneys General expressed concern that “state and federal policies are diverging with respect to the relative emphasis on ensuring the availability of prescription pain mediations to those who need them.” (28)
HUMAN RIGHT WATCH” MAGAZINE WRITES:
Human Rights Watch investigated parallel construction from April 2016 to October 2017 using interviews, court records, documents disclosed by the government, and media reports. In this report we detail how the practice:
” Is a technique that, the evidence suggests, is employed frequently and possibly even daily;
Has roots in strained and untested government interpretations of US Supreme Court and other cases—cases that in fact have never explicitly provided a license for officials to deliberately avoid telling defendants the truth about investigative methods in order to conceal practices that might raise legal concerns;
May be employed by a range of federal agencies responsible for investigating suspected violations of criminal and immigration law;
In particular, is employed by a part of the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) known as the Special Operations Division (“SOD”), at least part of which has been nicknamed “the Dark Side” and which the evidence suggests is responsible for passing tips to various law enforcement bodies with the expectation that those tips will not be revealed in court;
Regularly relies on pretextual stops and searches of vehicles—an exercise of police powers that is sometimes known as a “wall stop” or “whisper stop” and that risks becoming unlawfully coercive;”
An investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General regarding “the DEA’s use of administrative subpoenas to obtain broad collections of data or information,” including “the use of ‘parallel construction’ or other techniques to protect the confidentiality of these programs,” remained ongoing the time of writing. (28)
MOTHER WINNIE MADIKIZELA-MANDELLA, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
DEA’S CAMPAIGN OF TYRANNY TO CONTROL THE FIELD OF MEDICINE OF YOUR THRU FEAR AND INTIMIDATION HOW DID WE GET HERE???
The United States Justice Department along with the Us Drug Enforcement Administration has created a slippery slope of analysts to justify moving in under public health threat, probable cause a simple close examination of the Order to Show Cause (OTSC) or record shows no the warrants to be Fraud defected. The question becomes how is it they been able to get away with this for so long. (28)
PROSECUTION OF PHYSICIANS FOR OPIOID PRESCRIBING
According to Brennan, Carr, and Cousins et al, July 2007 article:
” Early in the present decade, two important developments occurred in the United States. First, concern about diversion and illicit use of prescription opioids increased as instances of OxyContin misuse and abuse (some fatal) became more common. Second, a consensus emerged between pain clinicians and opioid regulators that the twin public policies of adequate pain management and restriction of illicit opioid use should be pursued concurrently and with mutual respect. This “doctrine of balance” reached its high watermark in August 2004, when the DEA posted a series of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers about the use of medications, particularly opioids, in pain management, on its website. ” (6)
“These FAQs were prepared by a blue-ribbon panel of clinicians and regulators. Three months later, concurrent with its prosecution of a physician for an inappropriate opioid prescription, the DEA abruptly withdrew its support for this consensus statement and removed the FAQs from its website. To pain clinicians, a major inconsistency had emerged between best clinical practice and the potential for regulatory scrutiny and prosecution for opioid prescription.” (6)
“After years of reassurance by the DEA that legitimate, appropriate opioid prescription would not attract liability, its 2004 actions had a chilling effect. In late 2006 the DEA made a concession to clinicians’ anxieties (and fears by their patients of decreased access to medications) by proposing to amend its regulations to allow physicians to provide patients with multiple prescriptions of the same schedule II (controlled) substance to be filled sequentially to provide up to a 90-day supply. As of early 2007, the FAQs have not been re-posted and the physician in question remains imprisoned. This and other, less well-known prosecutions of physicians who prescribed unusually large quantities of opioids suggest inconsistencies between the educational efforts of some government agencies to encourage the appropriate prescribing of pain medications, and prosecution by other agencies of physicians who do so.”(6)
” Most opioid-related deaths involve illicit substances, such as heroin and fentanyl. overdose deaths related to prescription opioids have both declined significantly in recent years. Nevertheless, the federal government has committed to further restricting the availability of opioid pain medications.”
” To that end, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has implemented an aggressive effort to ASAM’s affiliate, the Tennessee Society of Addiction Medicine physicians have been charged with a crime. prescription opioid medication. shut down rogue prescribers and pharmacists. raided, searched, and investigated a past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM), the editor-in-chief of the Practical Pain Management medical journal, the immediate past president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and others.”
“The fear of DEA action, in particular, may lead doctors to avoid patients with chronic pain (although there is more to that avoidance than concerns about the DEA) and may steer those who do treat chronic pain patients with controlled substances to undertreat their pain. However, the practice management techniques described in the medical board guidelines will help to reduce those risks considerably.” (6)
” AND THE LORD INSTRUCTED PAUL, DO NOT BE AFRAID, KEEP ON SPEAKING, FOR I AM WITH YOU”
JOSEPH L.WEBSTER, SR., MD, MBA, FACP, BS. PHARMACY
” The orderly flow of a prescription “from” the doctor to the patient – via the Pharmacist – clearly outlines where the ‘diagnosis’ has to come from. It is statutorily the purview of the pharmacist to ‘inspect and assure’ that the drug that is being given is safe and has no known incompatibilities with the patient and its holistic environment.”
DX; MSI.26 M48.0, NONACUTE PAIN
“It is not the purview nor is the pharmacist trained to ‘challenge the diagnosis’ of the physician and to do so verbally or otherwise with the patient. It erodes the ‘doctor-patient’ relationship and destroys the ‘confidence’ of the patient in his/her physician. At the very least it is ‘unethical’ and may very well be a HIPPA violation and beneath the standard of care as a pharmacist. “
“Any healthcare provider that is licensed to ‘prescribe’ is governed by the set of conditions and circumstances under which a prescription can be written. Thus it is illegal to write a prescription for a person that the prescriber has not conducted the ‘chain of authority’ that would qualify him/her to write a prescription: history and physical examination, formulation of a diagnosis, and discussing such with the patient as well as the proposed manner of treatment in a culturally sensitive and ethically appropriate manner; and provision of an opportunity for the patient to ‘question and discuss alternative forms of treatment; etc.”
“Once the provider has met all of the aforementioned and other ‘requirements to write a prescription, then and then ONLY should a healthcare practitioner write a prescription. Furthermore, as stated above, a pharmacist IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO WRITE A CONTROL PRESCRIPTIONS by any of the regulatory boards of health.”
WE ARE TO BE UNSEEN
” It is my professional opinion that the pharmacist in question had ‘no reason’ and more importantly the pharmacist had ‘no power’ to question or interrogate each provider on ‘each prescription’ that is received as long as the ‘safety, efficacy and convenience’ of the medications being prescribed meet the standards of Medication Dispensing. Any given medication can be and certainly will be given for multiple different diagnoses and it is not even feasible for the pharmacist to ‘contact and question’ each and every diagnosis.”(30)
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AFFIRMED CDC NARCOTIC ANALGESIC AND ANXIETY GUIDELINES TO BE INCORRECT
ADDICTION, ABUSE, AND MISUSE
The distinction between tolerance and addiction should be emphasized; most opioid-tolerant patients do not exhibit signs of addiction. Once again, individual variability characterizes the development of addiction, making outcome prediction difficult [3], but some features are associated with increased risk for addiction: increasing dose requirement, younger age, preexisting mental health disorders, and prior substance abuse [4]. Significantly, aberrant behaviors have been observed in nearly a quarter of patients taking opioids for noncancer low back pain in the U.S. [5]. The current widespread use of opioids for chronic noncancer pain created a need for vigilance in identifying patients who are abusing (unlawful use or use despite harm to the user) or misusing (use other than as prescribed) opioid medication. (17) (32)
NIH STUDY 2017: WHITE OPIOIDS, PHARMACEUTICAL RACE AND THE WAR ON DRUGS THAT WASN’T
According to White opioids: Pharmaceutical race and the war on drugs that wasn’t Julie Netherland and Helena Hansen Published online 2017 Jun 28. doi: 10.1057/biosoc.2015.46PMCID: PMC5501419 NIHMSID: NIHMS752948 PMID: 28690668
“In one of the only studies to explicitly look at how drug policy is used to carve out White spaces exempt from punitive more approaches, Lassiter (2015) takes a historical look at the roots of the White opioid crisis of today. Looking back to marijuana policies of the 1970s, he states: “exemptions created for white middle-class participants in the underground market-place were not merely epiphenomenal but rather constitutive of the expansion of the carceral state (p. 127)”. The drug war operates because of a reciprocal relationship between the criminalization of blackness and the decriminalization of whiteness.”
” Lassiter notes that, when the Rockefeller Drug Laws instituted harsh mandatory minimums, White (dominant caste) suburban youth found themselves facing significant jail time for low-level marijuana possession. Parents of white suburban youth banded together to create policy changes that exempted marijuana from the Rockefeller Drug Laws, essentially decriminalizing low-level possession in some jurisdictions. This was possible, in part, because of the racial dynamics and the portrayal of White youth (dominant caste) as sympathetic victims of the organized narcotics trade. “(4)
THE DEA COURTS OF INJUSTICE
The DEA operates a separate judicial tribunal system that has gone unregulated and avoided the scrutiny of the Congress of the United States. This is in reality why Walmart et al (amicus curiae) have filed preemptive strike briefs COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORYRELIEF against both DOJ/ DEA because it fears disruption of commerce. (17)
WHY WALMART FILED A PREEMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST DEA/DOJ AND WHY WALMART WILL WIN
” In its Complaint, Walmart Inc. (“Walmart”) explained why it, and the pharmacy industry more broadly, need declaratory relief clarifying the scope of its obligations under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”) and its regulations. The Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) and its parent agency, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), are seeking to distract from their own failures in combating the opioid crisis by shifting responsibility to pharmacists who fill prescriptions issued by state-licensed and DEA-registered doctors.” (18),(20),(21)
” Unsupported by statute or regulation, Defendants have invented a slew of purported obligations, all driving toward their broader position that pharmacists and pharmacies must rigorously second-guess doctors’ judgments before filling their prescriptions. At the same time, pharmacists and pharmacies face conflicting guidance and legal risk from state regulators, doctors, and patients who strenuously object to what they view as an invasion of the doctor-patient relationship and unauthorized practice of medicine.” (18) (31)
UNITED STATES SURGEON GENERAL JEROME ADAMS AND HIS BROTHER: SO WHY IS PHILLIP IN PRISON AND NOT IN TREATMENT???
US SURGEON GENERAL JEROME ADAMS
At the Behavioral Health and Opioids Conference, held April 26, 2018, United States Surgeon General Jerome Adams spoke of two personal tragedies. His brother Philip serving a 10-year sentence for drug addiction. So why is Phillip in prison? Because Phillip belongs to the subordinate caste in America and similar to the targetted Black own pharmacies he is low hanging fruit and a quota has to be met.
PART – 2 COMING SOON
FOR NOW, YOU ARE WITHIN THE NORMS
A DEFIANT BLACK WOMAN WITH CHILD, FALOREIA,TRIKALA, GREECE
Such is how Ms. Breonna Taylor was murdered having been erroneously targeted in an illegal raid by law enforcement. These types of illegal targeting occur too frequently and have remained hidden from the Public. Congressional Oversight must expand to the illegal activities of the DEA, Now.
4. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, April 2020, pg. 47, pg. , Wilkerson, Isabelwilkerson.com
a. Gretchen Sorin and Rick Burns, “African American: Driving While Black,” rebroadcast Nov 26, 2020 “fundamental fact space and mobility from the very start have been unequally distributed in American life by race.” XM-126, interview Laura Coates Esq., discussing intersectionality.https://videopress.com/embed/xyGXE7mv?preloadContent=metadata&hd=1THE LAURA COATES SHOW XM-126
5. Yihequan or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists: fought courageously against Westerners mainly British (foreigner) who use opium to impose there will upon the People and resources of China, resulting in what is paraphrase as a “Century of Humiliation, which was overcome by Mao SeTung, Cho Enli, and many other heroes who sacrifice their lives to erase this foreign stain from their soil,1948 and rebuild their great culture.
6. Brennan F, Carr DB, Cousins M. Pain management: a fundamental human right. Anesth Analg 2007;105:205–21.
” African-Americans, Hoover’s largest targeted group, didn’t have to be perceived as having liberal, or even radical or subversive, ideas to merit being spied on. Nor was it necessary for them to engage in violent behavior to become a watched person. Being black was enough.”
Wikipedia: Justice Department- – Jack Keeney
It is not unrelated, that the senior career official in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, who oversees the targeting and prosecution of public officials, is John Keeney–a man who got his start working in the Justice Department’s Internal Security Division in 1951, working hand-in-glove with Hoover’s FBI. Think of it: Keeney spent the 1930s first two {decades} of his career working side-by-side with J. Edgar Hoover; Hoover has been dead for almost 30 years, but Jack Keeney is still a top official in Justice Department headquarters.
9. “Driving While Black” film documentary PBS/2020, Gretchen Sorin, Ph.D., Ric Burns, interview Laura Coate’s Show, XM 126 radio, Urban View, Monday thru Friday, 10:00 AM to !2:00 noon.
10. Video, THE BLACK PHARMACIST (Pronto Pharmacy) “Low Hanging Fruit,” Tampa, Fl August 2020https://videopress.com/embed/bQli8Wub?preloadContent=metadata&hd=1LOW HANGING FRUIT
3. Coyle N. Opioids, cancer pain, quality of life and quality of death: patient narratives and a clinician’s comments. In Meldrum ML, ed. Opioids and pain relief: a historical perspective. Seattle: IASP Press, 2003.
25. LP 3, Network, pg. 15, 17,18,19, KenSpidel, RPh., PharmD FIACP, FACA,Pharmacotherapeutic Expert in pain management, hormone therapy, non-sterile, and sterile compounding Retired Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Findlay Served as a surveyor and accreditation expert for ACHC/PCAB Served as multi-term president of the National Home Infusions Association (NHIA), Branvold & Carvalho, 2014 World Health Organization, 2003 Pain Presentation_Slide Handout.pdf
Miguel de la Garza, MD, DABA, DAPM Board certified physician who practices multidisciplinary interventional pain management in 4 offices in the Tampa Bay area Performs interventional pain procedures, specializing in minimally invasive surgical decompression of herniated disks and spinal stenosis, implantable intrathecal pump, spinal cord stimulation, and peripheral nerve stimulation. Diplomat, American Board of Anesthesiology. Diplomat, American Board of Pain Medicine.
From the Tenet Endowed Chair in Health Law and Ethics, Center for Health Law Studies, Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri. Address correspondence to Sandra H. Johnson, JD, LLM, Tenet Endowed Chair in Health Law and Ethics, Center for Health Law Studies, Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University, 3700 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63108. Address e-mail to johnsosh@slu.edu.
NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L.CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., REV. C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., MBA., WILLIE GUINYARD BS., BRAHM FISHER ESQ.,JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., ESTHER HYATT PHD.,BRAHM FISHER ESQ.,MICHELE ALEXANDER, CUDJOE WILDING BS,DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD,BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS
SO HAS WHY HAS DOJ/DEA FOCUSED IN ON WALMART?
So why has the DOJ/DEA turned on Walmart, one of America’s most successful and larges retail conglomerates? The answer here is very simple because Walmart does a large percentage of its business in China. Thus given the narrow-minded beliefs and Anti-Asian rhetoric being generated within the outgoing Trump Administration, Walmart is China and China must be dealt with. READ:
The issues here are simple and can be simply expressed to show the actions of DOJ/DEA are aberrant. We are not street drug dealers or “drug cartels” we are just pharmacists performing our duties as pharmacists as part of the health care team. Walmart is a company engaged in legal commerce who maintains a pharmacy section which employs pharmacist.
Your previous argument is consistent with ours, DEA/DOJ actions of maintaining secret societies (such as SOD or withholding discoverable info) within their agency is dangerous to health care and demonstrates the violation of patients rights through the disability act. This becomes an overreach of the Federal Government.
A GREAT GREEK FEAST, DELPHI GREECES
Although we may have differences in our political beliefs and party affiliations the issues and concern here are the same, DOJ/DEA actions are troubling and their authority must be brought before judicial review. These medications of the Opioid Classification are dispensed only through prescriptions and are legal, but they necessary in treating the disease condition of pain. Peripheral and central nervous system pain are disease states and the disease states have been completely absent in DEA’s actions throughout.
The DEA actions interfere with that treatment particularly when one only need to ask two questions: 1. How long has pain and anxiety been around? 2, How long has the DEA been around?
We have made that argument in yourarewithinthenorms.com (ywtn). As I see it and I believe you do too DEA’s actions amount to a take over of medicine and health care (that’s why all these groups of physicians and surgeons have joined in a chorus to support Walmart). The DEA/DOJ is defining medical protocols and that alone is dangerous.
Perhaps, Mr. Siebman you may want to consider the Defunding and Banding of the DEA through Congress because the evidence of the so-called “Dark Side Unit” is even more troubling considering this agencies actions toward Pharmacist and Companies which hire a pharmacist to dispensed legally authorize medications for the treatment of disease states.
A GREAT GREEK DESERT, DELPHI, GREECE
The Defendant brief of 12/9/2020 accusing Walmart of “Gaming” is further troubling and alarming. This brings up another discussion; I don’t believe Walmart is ordering or dispensing heroin or illegally manufactured carbon fentanyl.
So why does DOJ/DEA get to maintain the information in secret unless their goal is to destroy or extort Walmart in a surprise raid (or sneak attack)? Walmart was smart enough to recognize DEA’s history of misbehavior and correctly did a preemptive strike with the Federal Court to expose their dangerous actions.
And DEA’s actions have undermined many small family independent pharmacies like Pronto Pharmacy Tampa FL, Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy, Wv, Lincourt Pharmacy Clearwater, At Cost, Ft Myers, Fl, Gulf Med Pharmacy Cape Coral Fl, et al.
MORNING FEAST, ATHEN GREECE
WE are Pharmacist not drug dealers Walmart is a business engaged in legal commerce, not a Drug Cartel. We are engaged in healthcare treating disease states and our focus is patient care and healthcare. DEA actions undermine our focus and our mission as health care providers this indeed is a Government Agency that is “ARMED WITH BADGES AND GUNS AND PROFOUND STUPIDITY.”
PLEASE TAKE US SERIOUSLY AND JUST DON’T BLOW US OFF.
NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L.CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., REV. C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., MBA., WILLIE GUINYARD BS., BRAHM FISHER ESQ.,JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., ESTHER HYATT PHD.,BRAHM FISHER ESQ.,MICHELE ALEXANDER, CUDJOE WILDING BS,DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD,BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS
___The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America the world’s largest business federation:
“Free enterprise and sound policymaking depend on the regularity of the agency process. And fundamental fairness requires that liability attaches only to violations of clearly established rules”
DOJ Opioid Leader Flays Pharmacies In Enforcement Vow
ARTICLE
BY
Jeff Overley
From Law360 (December 15, 2020, 10:40 PM EST) –” Many pharmacies have ignored their legal duty to prevent the diversion of narcotic painkillers for illicit uses, and related enforcement actions are likely in 2021, one of the U.S. Department of Justice‘s top opioid attorneys said Tuesday.
Daniel Feith, a deputy assistant attorney general overseeing the DOJ’s Consumer Protection Branch, made the comments during a keynote address at the Food and Drug Law Institute‘s annual enforcement conference for the pharmaceutical industry. The remarks signaled that the federal government will continue to broaden its opioid enforcement beyond drug manufacturers and distributors.”
______THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
“Free enterprise depends on a stable and predictable regulatory environment, in which businesses can operate and invest without unwittingly running afoul of the law.”
“The Consumer Protection Branch is also going after unlawful actions by others in the opioid supply chain, including pharmacies. Pharmacies are the last line of defense against prescription opioid diversion,” Feith, whose branch helps to lead a DOJ task force on opioid enforcement, told attendees via videoconference. “But too many pharmacies [for] too long abdicated that responsibility.” (3)
SYMBOLIZING INJUSTICE TO PAIN CARE
“In response to those failings, DOJ lawyers in Washington, D.C. — in cooperation with U.S. attorney offices and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — are pursuing “aggressive enforcement under the Controlled Substances Act to secure injunctions and penalties against pharmacies that have helped flood communities with opioids,” the deputy assistant attorney general said.
As one example, Feith singled out a DOJ complaint that accused a North Carolina pharmacy and its owner of systematically ignoring red flags for opioid diversion, including prescriptions that came from doctors who didn’t work nearby or had been cut off by other pharmacies. A federal court in February permanently barred the pharmacy and its owner from dispensing opioids.”
____the DEA master Pharmacy Plan 15DDHQ20R00000021, 9/20/2020, by Amanda Vanderveen
” Yes, we would expect that pharmacies that have an established mechanism to expose their business data to be incorporated with the provided data. “
“You can expect to see additional developments in the opioid arena in the coming year,” Feith said immediately after concluding his discussion of the North Carolina pharmacy. “We encourage everyone in [the] prescription opioid supply chain to work with us to identify wrongdoing, fix it and stem the damage this epidemic is causing.”
“WE ARE PHARMACIST NOT DRUG DEALERS”
“Feith didn’t name any specific pharmacy corporations on Tuesday, but his remarks came as the focus of a nationwide wave of opioid lawsuits increasingly shifts toward pharmacies. In general, pharmacies are accused of profiting immensely by dispensing vast amounts of addictive painkillers that clearly weren’t for legitimate medical needs. Unlike manufacturers and distributors, they have shown little interest publicly in settling. (1)
Most of the lawsuits against pharmacies have been brought by local governments in multidistrict opioid litigation, but there have been signs that greater federal involvement could be looming. Perhaps most notably, retail giant Walmart Inc. — which operates roughly 5,000 in-store pharmacies in the U.S. — recently launched a preemptive lawsuit seeking to sharply limit any legal liability for opioid sales.”
THE DIVERSION GROUP
“DOJ and DEA have stated they will file a civil complaint against Walmart for not going far enough in blocking doctors by refusing to fill their prescriptions,” the company wrote in October. “This threat is based on legal theories that have no basis in statute or regulation.”
Walmart and other pharmacy chains — including CVS Health Corp., Walgreen Co., and Rite Aid Corp. — are facing hundreds of lawsuits in the MDL, which could produce its first bellwether trials next year. The pharmacies have publicly vowed to fight the cases, but have lost key legal disputes and are increasingly becoming the MULTIDISTRICT LITIGATION (MDL’s) top remaining targets as drug manufacturers and distributors work toward finalizing global settlements. (1)
In a court filing this month, the DOJ averred that Walmart’s purported preemptive lawsuit — filed in Texas federal court — was in fact an attempt “to relitigate, in what it perhaps believes is a more-friendly forum, the questions of law already resolved against it in the MDL,” which is centralized in Ohio federal court.”
DOJ A THREAT TO PATIENT HEALTHCARE
In recent earnings reports, CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens have all described receiving subpoenas or civil investigative demands from the DOJ regarding their sales of prescription opioids.
Feith emphasized Tuesday that decisions to bring cases depend heavily on whether anyone was harmed by unlawful business practices, saying that “consumer harm is the lodestar for our exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
That comment brought to mind the DOJ’s announcement last year of a “first-of-its-kind” enforcement action against pharmacies. In that announcement, the government stressed that unlawful opioid dispensing by the pharmacies in question had been linked to two deaths and many “serious overdoses” that required hospital treatment.
“FALSUS IN UNO, FALSUS IN OMNIBUS”
Feith on Tuesday also discussed recent opioid settlements with drug makers like Purdue Pharma LP, Indivior PLC and Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC. He simultaneously echoed recent remarks from Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who said at the time of Purdue’s settlement in October that the DOJ was looking to punish “unlawful activity involving opioids at every level” of the pharmaceutical industry. (2)
“We’re committed to holding accountable all actors at all steps in the prescription drug supply chain who have contributed to this crisis,” Feith said at the FDLI conference. “As the deputy attorney general recently said, on the prescription side, that means any unlawful actions by manufacturers, distributors, pharmacy dispensers or physician prescribers.”
The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America
Civil Action No. 4:20-cv-00817-SDJ
INTRODUCTION AND INTERESTS OF AMICI CURIAE
The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America is the world’s largest business federation. It represents approximately 300,000 direct members and indirectly represents the interests of more than three million companies and organizations of every size, in every industry sector, from every region of the country. An important function of the Chamber is to represent its members’ interests in matters before Congress, the Executive Branch, and the courts. The Chamber files amicus curiae briefs in cases that raise issues of concern to the nation’s business community. Washington Legal Foundation (“WLF”) is a public-interest law firm and policy center with supporters nationwide. WLF promotes free enterprise, individual rights, limited government, and the rule of law. It often appears as amicus curiae to oppose civil liability unmoored from any statute or regulation. See, e.g., Domino’s Pizza, LLC v. Robles, 140 S. Ct. 122 (2019); Merck &
THE GATHERING OF PEOPLE JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Co. v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 962 F.3d 531 (D.C. Cir. 2020). The National Retail Federation (“NRF”) is the world’s largest retail trade association, representing diverse retailers from the United States and more than 45 countries. Retail is the nation’s largest private-sector employer, contributing $3.9 trillion to annual GDP and supporting one in four U.S. jobs. For over a century, NRF has been a voice for every retailer and every retail job, communicating the impact retail has on local communities and global economies. NRF
submits amicus curiae briefs in cases raising significant legal issues for the retail community. The Retail Litigation Center, Inc. (“RLC”) is the only trade organization dedicated to representing the retail industry in the courts. The RLC’s members include many of the country’s
1 Amici curiae state that no party’s counsel authored this brief in whole or in part, no party or party’s counsel contributed money intended to fund preparing or submitting this brief, and no person other than amici curiae, their members, or their counsel contributed money intended to fund preparing or submitting this brief. (2)
Case 4:20-cv-00817-SDJ Document 40 Filed 11/30/20 Page 8 of 23 PageID #: 430
largest and most innovative retailers, employ millions of workers throughout the United States, provide goods and services to tens of millions of consumers, and account for tens of billions of dollars in annual sales. The RLC provides courts with retail-industry perspectives on legal issues impacting its members and highlights the industry-wide consequences of significant cases. Since its founding, the RLC has participated as an amicus in more than 150 cases.
DELPHI, GREECE A GREEK SALAD
Businesses that face liability for purported violations of regulatory obligations have an interest in ensuring those obligations are created, refined, and enforced in accordance with law. Free enterprise and sound policymaking depend on the regularity of agency process. And fundamental fairness requires that liability attach only to violations of clearly established rules.
When trying to regulate the private sector, federal agencies have increasingly avoided notice and comment procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). Rather than use the APA’s procedures—which were developed to provide regulated entities with notice and an adequate opportunity to comment before the imposition of new substantive rules of conduct— agencies increasingly issue de facto regulations in the guise of interpretive guidance.
SYMBOL OF FAITH AND HOPE, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Predicating civil liability on interpretive guidance created without a transparent regulatory process goes against the requirements of the APA and due process and, here, violates binding regulations issued by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”). The Chamber, WLF, NRF, and RLC have an interest in seeing that agencies respect administrative law principles, stop unlawfully enforcing non-binding guidance, and operate consistently with due process and the rule of law.
CONCLUSION
Free enterprise depends on a stable and predictable regulatory environment, in which businesses can operate and invest without unwittingly running afoul of the law.
