Alabama bought lethal injection drugs on black market, feds seized them, report says

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/05/feds_seized_lethal_injection_d.html

A year ago, Alabama officials admitted for the first time that the state had run out of at least one of the three drugs it uses for lethal injections.

Now we know why.

Alabama, like several other states, had become so desperate for a supplier that it turned to the black market, the Atlantic reported in a story this week. The federal government did not approve and the Drug Enforcement Administration seized the drugs from several states.

Those details are part of an extensive feature story the Atlantic published this week about the execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma. More than just a recount of that execution, the story explains why so many states have struggled to obtain the sedatives needed for the lethal three-drug cocktail.

The problematic step in the lethal injection process has been the first of the three drugs – a sedative capable of putting inmates into a coma-like state of unconsciousness.

Until 2010, states bought the sedative sodium thiopental from the U.S.-based pharmaceutical manufacturer Hospira. However, Hospira stopped making the drug that year after the Food and Drug Administration discovered that its plant in North Carolina had been producing contaminated drugs.

Hospira was the only FDA-approved source of sodium thiopental, but several states desperate for other sources of the drug soon began to look elsewhere. At least four states bought the drug from a London-based company called Dream Pharma, but anti-death penalty advocates soon revealed that Dream Pharma was little more than a front for the black market. Far from being a pharmaceutical manufacturer, Dream Pharma had two desks and a cabinet in a small dilapidated building that belonged to a driving school, the Atlantic report says.  

After Dream Pharma closed, states turned to suppliers in Mumbai and elsewhere in India for sodium thiopental, which sold them the drug until they realized that it was being used for executions, at which point they stopped.

It’s not clear which source Alabama used, but after 2011, it didn’t matter.

“Since Hospira had been the only FDA-approved supplier of sodium thiopental, states that had imported it had done so illegally,” the Atlantic reports. “Prisons had become, in effect, drug smugglers, and while the FDA may have been willing to look the other way, the DEA was not. In March 2011, agents seized Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental. In April, they seized Tennessee’s, Kentucky’s, South Carolina’s, and Alabama’s.”

After having their supplies of black market thiopental seized, some states experimented with another barbiturate called pentobarbital, but soon the manufacturer of that drug, the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, put restrictions on its distribution and use that prevented prisons from using it in executions.

After Lundbeck put those restrictions in place, states turned to compounding pharmacies, which make small quantities of made-to-order drugs, often for patients with allergies or other special needs.

Others began experimenting with the sedative midazolam, but in roughly one in four of those executions, the drug has failed to fully sedate the prisoners.

In Alabama, the state has refused to disclose both what drugs it uses for lethal injections and their sources of supply, citing the potential for litigation.

Several states have passed laws to make that information a state secret, even keeping from the defendants facing execution.

In the last two years, Alabama lawmakers have attempted to pass such a secrecy bill. Last year, a bill that would have made the information secret, even out of reach of a court order by a judge, died in the Alabama Senate.

This year, the Alabama House has again passed the secrecy bill and it is awaiting committee action in the Alabama Senate. 

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Cancer patient turned away at pharmacies

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/story/news/health/2015/05/14/cancer-patient-turned-away-pharmacy/27346033/

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Turned away at the pharmacy. So many of you have called and emailed First Coast News about being denied medication. Tonight a cancer patient, who is a retired pain management doctor, is speaking out saying enough is enough.

“More than once I thought this is not worth it and just give up. My time is limited. Am I going to go through this every month?,” said Dr. Gary Welch.

Welch is battling advanced stage 3 pancreatic cancer, one of the most painful cancers.

“It’s like rats chewing on your intestine. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

FCN FIRST FOR YOU

Prescription for Pain: Patients denied medication

 

The father of 6 and grandfather of 12 got the shocking diagnosis in 2013.

“Pancreatic cancer for most people is a death sentence. Simple as that. The question is how long. 50 percent die in a year. All my family came in on Thanksgiving in 2013. I didn’t think I’d see them in 2014 for Thanksgiving.”

After two rounds of chemotherapy Welch, a retired doctor and army colonel who now lives in Port Charlotte, Florida is in Jacksonville for proton therapy. He says it was either that or go to hospice care.

His oncologist has prescribed him opioids including a Fentanyl patch.

“I’m essentially pain free with the patch,” said Welch.

But getting a refill has become a nightmare. He says he has been made to feel like he is a substance abuser.

FIRSTCOASTNEWS.COM

Florida’s pill mill crackdowns hurting those in real pain | firstcoastnews.com

 “The thing that bothers me the most is I have talked to my caregivers, my physicians, and the only thing I want to know is I want my pain controlled and they have assured me they will give me whatever it takes to control my pain. Then when you go to the pharmacy they won’t give it to you,” said Welch.

This week he says he went to a Jacksonville pharmacy with his prescription only to be told back to come back the next day, and again the next day and the next day.

“If you go in to get your pain medicine you are made to feel like you are a common criminal… I just don’t think the pharmacy should put the burden on the patient. You are guilty until you prove otherwise. You are a substance abuser until you can prove otherwise.”

By the time he finally got his prescription filled he had already run out of patches.

“I’ve had that happen at three pharmacies. Somebody would call and say it’s ready. I’d go to pick it up, and I get there and it’s not ready and I say they called me it’s ready. Oh well, nobody left a message for us so you we can’t help you. You will have to come back,” recounted Welch.

Welch is resigned to rise above this broken system and use his precious remaining time to ease the pain of those who come after him

“I would like to make a difference so patients who need the drugs get them in a timely fashion and are treated like patients and not like criminals,” said Welch.

“The DEA recommends, when legitimate patients have problems getting their prescriptions filled at a pharmacy, the patients should ask to speak with the pharmacist on duty if they are dealing with a pharmacy technician. The pharmacy technician may not have the proper training and experience to make a professional judgment. If the pharmacist is not able to help, then patients should ask to speak with the pharmacy manager to find out why their prescriptions are being denied and ask about their policy on filling or denying prescriptions. Legitimate patients have a right to know why their prescriptions are being denied. The pharmacy should be held accountable for their decision not to fill a prescription and stop using the DEA as a convenient excuse to refuse service.

DEA also recommends that legitimate patients who are unable to have their prescriptions filled notify their doctors and their state pharmacy board.”

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CVS in Upper West Side gave wrong medications to 80-year-old man: lawsuit

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-cvs-gave-wrong-meds-80-year-old-customer-lawsuit-article-1.2222748

An Upper West Side pharmacy repeatedly doled out the wrong meds to an 80-year-old customer—first a high dose of sleeping pills then unwanted cholesterol drugs, according to a suit filed Thursday.

Retired history professor Libero Marx Renzulli claims druggists at a CVS on Amsterdam Ave. flubbed a pair of prescriptions in 2013, first with sleeping pills so strong he ended up taking a life-threatening spill.

“I was taking them around the clock. I thought they were something else,” Renzulli said on Thursday. “I took such a fall in the apartment. I hit my head on some sharp furniture. I was bleeding all over.”

Renzulli said the second mix-up occurred in December of 2013 when he received somebody’s cholesterol drugs instead of an antibiotic, causing him to collapse again. After taking those pills for a day, he started feeling sharp pains in his torso while waiting on line at a bank across the street from his home on West 85th St.

“I was in such agony I passed out completely when I got back to my lobby. The doorman and superintendent had to carry me to my bed,” he said.

This time Renzulli’s doctor made a house call and discovered that CVS had given Renzulli somebody else’s prescription for Crestor, a cholesterol medication, instead of Keflex, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections.

“This could have killed me,” said Renzulli.

The former history professor at Fairleigh Dickenson University conceded “I should have been looking” at the prescription bottles, but he said he trusted CVS to get it right.

“This could happen to anybody. I’m sure 90% of the people don’t look at the bottles. This is something you take as a matter of fact,” Renzulli said. He said he decided to sue because “there has to be some accountability.”

“From now on, everything I take, I look at,” he said. He said he trusts it more because most of his prescriptions now come by mail.

CVS’ Director of Public Relations Mike DeAngelis said “we have not been served (with court papers) and cannot comment on pending litigation.”

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Rand Paul has introduced federal legislation to reform civil asset forfeiture. But until that passes, it’s best to know your rights.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/14/how-to-keep-the-dea-from-taking-all-your-cash/?tid=sm_tw

Joseph Rivers was never convicted of a crime. He was never charged with one, or even officially detained. But that didn’t stop the Drug Enforcement Administration from taking his life savings away under civil asset forfeiture, the highly controversial practice that allows law enforcement officers to take property from people whom they never even charge with a crime.

I spoke with Rivers’s attorney, Michael Pancer of San Diego, about the case yesterday. He said the situation Rivers got caught up in — where federal agents boarded a train and started asking people questions like “who are you?” and “where are you going?” — is a lot more common than you might expect. “Their purpose is to try to find money to seize or find evidence of criminal activity,” he told me. “That’s why they do it. But I think the main purpose is to try to find money.”

Many law-abiding citizens may not be worried about civil forfeiture laws, because why would police target you if you haven’t committed a crime? But when it comes to civil asset forfeiture, it doesn’t matter whether you commit a crime or not. If you exhibit certain types of behavior that law enforcement officers deem “suspicious” — a broad category encompassing everything from having empty energy drink cans in your car to buying a one-way train ticket with cash — they can use that as a basis for a determination that property you own was obtained through illegal means.

In last year’s Washington Post investigation of highway asset forfeitures, experts outlined the contours of law governing these encounters. In a similar spirit, here’s what experts say about how the law works in situations like the one Joseph Rivers found himself in.

Pancer says there’s some argument over whether you even have to identify yourself if a law enforcement official asks you your name on a train or bus. In some states this is required by law, and in others it’s not, according to the ACLU. But it wouldn’t hurt to do so just to be safe. Beyond that, you’re under no obligation to tell them anything. Not where you’re from, where you’re going or why you’re going there. You don’t have to say how you purchased your ticket, or whether it was one-way or not.

“You have the right to remain silent,” as they say — especially if a law enforcement officer just wants to chat.

Joseph Rivers answered the DEA agents’ questions. When they didn’t like what he said, they asked his permission to search his belongings. He gave it to them, but he didn’t have to.

If police ask for one of these “consensual searches,” you’re under no obligation to give consent. You might get some pushback from the officers. They might threaten to detain you, or to obtain a warrant. But in order to do that they’d need probable cause — and if you’re abiding by the law, and you haven’t said anything to them, they have no probable cause to work from.

“It’s almost a cliche that a lawyer always tells his client don’t cooperate, don’t talk,” Pancer said. “This is a concrete reason we give that advice.”

If a police officer attempts to search you without consent or probable cause, that search is illegal. But you won’t do yourself any favors by yelling at the officer, or by physically resisting them. It’s not up to you to determine whether or not a search is illegal, or whether there was sufficient probable cause — if things get to that point, the courts will have to sort it out.

Pancer says that when the DEA agents were taking Joseph Rivers’s money away, a number of other passengers who witnessed it became upset. “One witness tried to question the agents and was threatened with arrest,” Pancer told me.

Cellphone cameras have fundamentally changed the relationship between police and the communities they serve. Where before it was the cops’ word against yours, now it’s relatively easy for eyewitnesses to produce video evidence of police encounters.

“When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view,” according to the ACLU. “That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities and police.”

Just don’t interfere with the police — then they may be legally allowed to demand you stop filming.

Pancer told me that there may be a silver lining to Rivers’s case. “An L.A. talent manager from Detroit, who manages talent in the music video world, read about this story and felt very badly for Joseph. They’re in touch now, and he may get some work out of it.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration did not respond to a request for comment by the time this article was published.

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Feds to return $107G they seized from NC business owner, attorneys say

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/14/attorneys-feds-will-give-nc-man-his-seized-107gs-back/

Lyndon McLellan fought the law — and apparently, he won.

The North Carolina business owner for months has been battling the federal government after IRS agents last fall seized $107,000 from him, under a controversial practice known as civil forfeiture. But his attorneys at the Institute for Justice announced Thursday that the IRS and Department of Justice have moved to dismiss the case and give him back his money. 

“What’s wrong is wrong, and what the government did here was wrong,” McLellan said in a statement Thursday. “I just hope that by standing up for what’s right, it means it won’t happen to other people.” 

FoxNews.com reported earlier this week on McLellan’s struggle to get his money back. The Institute for Justice said the feds moved to drop their case on Wednesday. Asked about the claim, an IRS official told FoxNews.com they could not comment on the case; a representative with DOJ has not yet responded to a request for comment. 

McLellan is just one of thousands of Americans the IRS has seized money from, supposedly for “structuring” funds to avoid a law requiring banks to alert the government of deposits over $10,000. The law was instituted to help the government ferret out drug dealers, terrorists or other criminals — but the IRS occasionally flags deposits of just under $10,000 as suspicious even if there’s no evident criminal wrongdoing, in turn ensnaring people who may be innocent. 

That’s what allegedly happened in McLellan’s case. His convenience store in North Carolina was raided in October by IRS agents who said he made a series of just-under-$10,000 deposits in a 24-hour period. They suspected he was “structuring” his cash, and seized his account. 

Robert Everett Johnson, the lead attorney on the case, told FoxNews.com Thursday that small business owners like McLellan, who deal mostly in cash, were being unfairly targeted by the law. 

“There is no crime in this country for doing business in cash,” he said. “But the government treated Lyndon worse than a criminal, by taking his property and forcing him to prove his own innocence to get that property back.”

According to Johnson, despite an IRS pledge in November to curb forfeitures that weren’t connected to criminal activity, the Department of Justice filed a claim in December saying McLellan had violated the structuring law. The money was held in what is called a “customs suspension account” under the Treasury Department while his case was in limbo. 

McLellan had been struggling for months to recover the $107,000, while keeping his business – a store, restaurant and gas station operation – afloat.

In that time, the government never pressed any criminal charges against McLellan. Meanwhile, the DOJ changed its own policy to rein in its restructuring prosecutions in March. But that didn’t necessarily mean that McLellan could get his savings back retroactively. 

At a February 2015 hearing before the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, Rep. George Holding, R-N.C., mentioned to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen that he had reviewed McLellan’s case — though he did not specifically name it.

“If that case exists, then it’s not following in the policy I’ve been advised,” Koskinen testified, adding that he had “lengthy meetings with the senior leadership” of the IRS’s criminal investigation division and was assured that employees were trained in and advised about the new policy.

Two months ago, the government offered McLellan 50 percent of his money back and warned him against chasing publicity, even going so far as to suggest it would rile people inside the IRS and could hurt his chances of seeing his cash again, his attorneys said.

“Today the the DOJ is giving him 100 percent,” said Institute for Justice spokesman J. Justin Wilson. “We got him an enormous amount of publicity – and it did work.” 

Wilson said McLellan had other resources to keep his business, “L & M Convenience Mart,” open since last October. But he had to fork over $3,000 for his initial legal fees, and some $19,000 for an accountant to audit his business to prove to the government there wasn’t anything untoward going on. The government said it will not repay those costs or any interest on the seized money.

According to the Institute for Justice, in many civil forfeiture cases, the government will make a deal with the owner where he or she will agree to turn over half their seized money in order to make a lengthy and costly legal fight go away.

Before the seizure, McLellan, 50, had spent more than a decade running the store, located in Fairmont, N.C. When the feds took his money, rumors quickly spread in the tiny hamlet that McLellan’s money was frozen because of suspected ties to drugs, fraying the good reputation he’d spent years building in the community.

“Several people thought it was drug-related but when I told them what really happened they said, ‘How in the world can they take your money?’ That’s the answer I’ve been waiting on too,” he told FoxNews.com earlier this week.

From 2005 to 2012, the IRS seized more than $242 million from alleged structuring violations in more than 2,500 cases, according to an Institute for Justice study. In more than 830 of those cases, no other criminal activity was alleged.

Scott Bullock, another attorney with the Institute, said in a statement Congress needs to pass “binding reform” to make sure there are no more McLellans at risk of losing all.

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WV Supreme Court: Mingo residents claiming pill addiction can sue doctors, pharmacies

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CDC study of Indiana HIV cases shows most are same strain

http://www.whas11.com/story/news/local/indiana/2015/05/14/cdc-study-of-indiana-hiv-cases-shows-most-are-same-strain/27314187/

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A top Indiana health official says a preliminary genetic analysis of HIV samples taken from about half the people infected in the state’s largest HIV outbreak shows nearly all of them have the same strain of the virus.

State epidemiologist Pam Pontones says the genetic analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preliminary but suggests that particular HIV strain was introduced in southeastern Indiana within the past year.

Indiana’s HIV outbreak tied to needle-sharing among intravenous drug users stands at 154 confirmed cases and one preliminary positive.

State health department spokesman Ken Severson says 69 of 72 people whose HIV specimens were analyzed by the CDC have the same strain of the virus.

CDC spokeswoman Donnica Smalls says the agency is working on a final genetic analysis.

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PharMerica agrees to pay $31.5 million in settlement with Justice Department, DEA

http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/news/2015/05/14/pharmerica-agrees-to-pay-31-5-million-in.html

PharMerica Corp. has reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency related to an investigation into the dispensing of controlled substances at some of the company’s pharmacies.

Under terms of the agreement, Louisville-based PharMerica (NYSE: PMC) will pay $31.5 million to the federal government, according to a news release. The company said the settlement contains no allegations or findings that controlled substances were diverted or that any patient was harmed. It also said it changed its operating policies in 2010 to enhance procedures related to the dispensing of controlled substances.

PharMerica also said it is fully reserved for the amount of the settlement.

In the news release, the company said it “will remain diligent in its efforts to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in the markets and jurisdictions in which it operates while continuing to deliver industry-leading performance in accordance with the highest ethical standards.”

PharMerica provides pharmacy services to institutional health care providers.

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Only On 2: Grammy-Nominated Star Outraged When 24-Hour CVS Refuses Her Rx ‘Because Of The Neighborhood’

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/05/14/only-on-2-grammy-nominated-star-outraged-when-24-hour-cvs-refuses-her-rx-because-of-the-neighborhood/

CARSON (CBSLA.com) — An R&B celebrity says a 24-hour CVS pharmacist refused to fill her prescription for painkillers in the middle of the night “because of the neighborhood.”

Kelly Price lives in Carson and is convinced the pharmacist meant the vicinity is unsafe because it’s in a low-income area. She saw what happened as an attack on the community.

“I was offended for the people of this neighborhood. I was offended for anybody who lives in a neighborhood that may not be considered the upper echelon where expensive homes are, or where six- and seven-figure earners live,” said the seven-time Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter.

It was 1 a.m. Tuesday and Price says she was trying to get painkillers for an upcoming dental procedure.

Price told CBS2’s Jennifer Kastner she located the store manager, and after 30 minutes of arguing, he convinced the pharmacist at the CVS on 150 Carson Street to fill her prescription.

CVS corporate apologized to Price on the phone late Wednesday and issued CBS2 a statement that read, in part: “It is not the store’s or the company’s policy to decline to fill certain prescriptions after midnight.”

Price says she shared her experience to make sure future customers aren’t treated the same way: “What if it were somebody that walked in and it was a life-or–death situation, and they were denied the ability to fill a prescription just because of the location of the store.”

CVS corporate says it’s trying to get a hold of the pharmacist who was on-duty to learn what may have transpired and to take any necessary correction action.

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