BREAKING: 60 arrested across 5 states in ‘Appalachia’ opioid takedown

WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department announced Wednesday that 60 people across five states, including more than 30 physicians, were charged in connection with millions of illegal prescription opioids in a takedown by its “Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force.”

The states are Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia. Some cases were developed years ago and are being brought to light with the new cases being unsealed on Wednesday.

“The opioid epidemic is the deadliest drug crisis in American history, and Appalachia has suffered the consequences more than perhaps any other region,” Attorney General William P. Barr said in a release.

According to the Justice Department, the suspects wrote some 350,000 prescriptions and distributed 32 million pills.

In Tennessee, according to prosecutors, a doctor known as the “Roc Doc,” ‘allegedly prescribed powerful and dangerous combinations of opioids and benzodiazepines, sometimes in exchange for sexual favors.’

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Last Edited by 4by2 on 04/17/2019 05:24 PM