DOJ & Others Bolster Prosecutorial Position on Drug Crimes

(Fall 2017) U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his Justice Department are clamping down on drug-related issues. Reversing the Obama administration’s more temperate approach to drug crimes – which led to a smaller federal prison roster for the first time in several decades – Sessions is issuing instructions for federal lawyers to hit drug offenders with the harshest charges possible for their offenses. Both civil rights organizations and Republican lawmakers are reportedly against the new stance.

Sessions also rolled out a new Department of Justice (DOJ) initiative called the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit. As part of this program, the DOJ is sending a dozen federal prosecutors to some of the cities hardest hit by the epidemic. They will battle the opioid scams, pill mills and health care fraud fueling drug abuse nationwide. Also, the Unit will focus on treatment facilities that have submitted reimbursement requests for drugs they proceed to fence illegally. Other targets will be those reporting fraudulent claims against private insurance companies. The Attorney General stated that another responsibility of the task force will be to identify over-prescribing physicians and over-dispensing pharmacies as well as pinpointing regional areas with extreme opioid activity.

Additionally, the DOJ recorded a $35 million-dollar win against Mallinckrodt LLC, one of the biggest sources of generic oxycodone (which has contributed to the opioid crisis). The pharmaceutical maker agreed to the settlement after being accused of violating the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). It is the first settlement of this size seen with a drug manufacturer to resolve country-wide allegations that the company failed to notice and report large orders of controlled drugs to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Sessions stated that the settlement shows drug companies that the DOJ will stringently police them; efforts he feels will help curb drug abuse and addiction and, in the process, decrease unnecessary deaths.

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