https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/10/01/inspector-general-harshly-criticizes-drug-enforcement-administration-for-allowing-opioid-makers-to-dramatically-increase-production/

By Lenny Bernstein Oct. 1, 2019 at 10:04 a.m. EDT

Even as deaths from opioid overdoses grew dramatically, the Drug Enforcement Administration allowed manufacturers to substantially increase the number of painkilling pills they produced each year, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Tuesday in a report that offers a harsh critique of the DEA.

Overdose deaths rose by an average of 8 percent from 1999 to 2013 and by a staggering 71 percent from 2013 to 2017. Yet the DEA, which sets annual quotas for narcotic painkillers produced in the United States, authorized a 400 percent increase in oxycodone output between 2002 and 2013, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said, and it didn’t begin cutting back until 2017.

Drug companies accused of allowing billions of pills to be diverted to the street have long argued that they produced only as many as the DEA allowed each year. The issue is certain to come up at a landmark civil trial of some of those companies that is scheduled to begin in Cleveland this month.

For their part, DEA officials have said that their estimates are based on data provided by the companies, and the real problem was the failure of some of those companies to prevent diversion of the pills, as required by federal law and regulations. They also have said that cutting back the overall supply risked denying legitimate pain patients the drugs they need if shortages were inadvertently created.

The report criticized the DEA for cutting back on the use of it most powerful deterrent, immediate suspension orders, between 2013 and 2017, at a time when deaths were skyrocketing. The DEA issued more of the orders — which allow them to instantly halt shipment of pain pills from a distributor — in 2012 than it did from 2013 to 2017.

The Washington Post revealed the sharp decline in immediate suspension orders in 2016, citing conflict between field offices that sought to use that power and the DEA’s legal office, which was setting up roadblocks.

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