Doctors Charged in Drug Scheme at Clinic Controlled by Traffickers, Authorities Say
America's long presence in Afghanistan.
I did not know that heroin is cheaper than Rush's Oxycontin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/nyregion/doctors-charged-in-drug-scheme-at-clinic.html?_r=1
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It is not an uncommon scene: a waiting room filled with patients hoping to see a doctor. But the crowd of up to 100 people that gathered each day outside the Astramed clinic at 1228 Southern Boulevard in the Bronx, clamoring to get a prescription for the painkiller oxycodone, was a different story, the authorities say.
A federal indictment charges that in the operation, corrupt doctors were paid $300 in cash for fraudulent medical visits that lasted a minute or two, involved no physical examination and consistently led to the writing of prescriptions for large doses of oxycodone.
Over three years, Astramed doctors wrote about 31,500 medically unnecessary prescriptions for oxycodone, encompassing about 5.5 million oxycodone tablets with a street value of up to $550 million, a government court filing says.
“The world of prescription drug trafficking is looking more and more like the world of old-school trafficking in narcotics like heroin, cocaine and crack,” said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, who added that more people have been dying from prescription drug abuse than heroin and cocaine combined.
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I had a major back injury from a car accident and was sent to pain management. They gave me an Rx for 7 narcotics. 7!
I threw them out and never went back. If I took everything they gave me, I'd either be a Zombie or dead. Or both 