Stoppnow attended the Fed Up Rally this weekend,September 28th 2014 and marched to the White House. Much needs to be done as evidenced by the 2000 in attendance and those also suffering loss that weren’t able to attend. The reception was held Saturday 9/27/14. As they were showing pictures of lost loved ones I could hear sobbing and visually see uncontrollable shaking from the person sitting next to Maureen. It turned out to ba a young man. Mark was there from Massachusetts with his sister. They had just lost their mother 4 weeks earlier. Mark said that the pills are still coming from Florida.
We had scheduled meetings with offices of Senators and Representatives. One must wonder where the Surgeon General is in all of this. The CDC has named the prescription drug deaths to be a national epidemic for years now. gone are the days when we had a Surgeon General speak out against irresponsible companies “Big Tobacco”. Rear Admiral Boris D Lushniak,MD.,MPH., is acting Surgeon General since 2013, no permanent appointment has been made;But he is Not Acting like a Surgeon General. He is silent.
I must share one meeting that we had with Karen L Summar, MD,MS Legislative Assistant to Congressman Blackburn 7th District Tennessee U.S. House of Representative. I asked Karen Summar if she could explain HR 4709 co-sponsored by Representative Blackburn and sponsored by Representative Tom Marino 10th Congressional District Pa.(HR 4709 passed unanimously in the House). And that we feel it ties the hands of the DEA. She stated that if a pharmacy makes one mistake then the DEA is taking away their license. I asked if she could give us one example since this is not the case in Florida. I had files with me pertaining to Walgreens and their Jupiter Distribution Center. They were cited for clear diversion of prescription drugs.

Oxycodone Purchases by Dosage Unit

Location                                   2009                                  2010                            2011

Hudson,Fl                             388,100                            913,900                       2,211,700

Ft.Myers,Fl                              95,800                              496,100                  2,165,900

Oviedo,Fl                               80,900                              223,500                     1,684,900

Port Richey, Fl                     344,000                              849,000                     1,406,000

Ft. Pierce,Fl                          250,000                             881,400                      1,329,600

Ft Pierce, Fl                          153,500                               507,100                 1,192,000

All of the above are still licensed.  In addition I stated that I had put one in particular aside for Representative Blackburn as it directly relates to her bill.  The Walgreens customer was issued too many pills. The store called the individuals house in an attempt to retrieve the pills.  The store was told by the customers girlfriend that he is a drug dealer and is out selling the pills and he told his girlfriend that he hit pay dirt today. Despite this incident the pharmacy continued to fill his prescriptions. Ms Summar took that Walgreens report. Maureen asked her how she felt about the PDMP. I said that we would like it to be mandatory. She abruptly stood said this meeting is over and left. The meeting lasted less than 5 minutes and was hostile in nature. It was very bizarre and as we gathered our things and walked out she was nowhere to be found.

The Bill is now in the Senate as S-2862 sponsored by Senator Whitehouse and Senator Hatch, changes have been made and it is an improvement over HR 4709 however it is still compromising to the DEA.

We met with the DEA in Arlington, Va on Wednesday October 1st.  What a welcome change, totally different tone. We were with them from 930a-12p. One of their requests of us was to help Legislatively and specifically mentioned Representative Blackburns and Representative Tom Marino of Pa. Bill HR 4709 I explained all of the above.  Maureen is sill in Pennsylvania for a few more days and has been unable to be granted a meeting with Representative Marino’s office

We will be having a follow-up conference call with DEA today.  My goal is still to reduce production. We do not need 114 tons of pills.

I ask all of you to contact your state Surgeon Generals office and request to have the 5th vital sign, that of pain (paid for by pharmaceutical) to be revisited. There does not need to be a standing order for a 30 day supply of opiates for a post-op patient nor for a large amount of them being prescribed by dentists after extraction of wisdom teeth.The public perception of those not touched by this epidemic is to trust their doctor and take as prescribed. They are not  aware that this is a highly addictive drug.

Stay tuned