The Justice Department on Monday filed a lawsuit against Rite Aid for allegedly violating the Controlled Substances Act, alleging that the company "knowingly filled unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances."
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In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Department of Justice is "using every tool at our disposal" to hold Rite Aid accountable for contributing to the opioid epidemic.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said "Rite Aid's pharmacists repeatedly filled prescriptions for controlled substances with obvious red flags, and Rite Aid intentionally deleted internal notes about suspicious prescribers. These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid's stores."
In the complaint, The Justice department alleges that from May 2014 to June 2019, Rite Aid filled thousands of unlawful combinations of prescriptions known as "the trinity" which included prescriptions for "excessive quantities of opioids, such as oxycodone and fentanyl."
Rite Aid pharmacists were accused of ignoring obvious signs of misuse and intentionally deleting some pharmacists' internal warnings about suspicious prescribers, such as "cash only pill mill???"
"These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid's stores," Associate Attorney...
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