CVS to Pay $11 Million to Settle Civil Penalty Claims Involving Violations of Controlled Substances Act
http://www.justice.gov/dea/divisions/hq/2013/hq040313.shtml
According to the article, this involved only CVS stores in Oklahoma
According to this http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/cvs/financials
Shows that CVS net profit is 3.88 Billion/yr or ~ 10 million a day.. so this fine.. amounts to ~ ONE DAY’S NET PROFIT… That fine should really hurt them !
With the recent 80 million dollar fine from WAGS and this one.. could the DEA trying to make up the cuts from the sequester ? Since they get to keep all the “booty” that they confiscate..
It is amazing the difference in how the DEA.. deals with large corporations and doc’s office when they do a raid…
When they raid a doc’s office.. reports state – that they typically come in .. armed to the hilt in S.W.A.T. gear… they scare the shit out of the pts… confiscate everything in the office – including HIPAA protected pt records… then they seize the doc’s house, cars, bank and brokerage accounts and gets the licensing board to suspend the doc’s license…
So the doc is otherwise made penniless … with no resources to hire attorney(s) to defend themselves. Docs that have later been exonerated… are never able to recover either professionally or financially.
To the best of my knowledge.. there has never been a doc’s practice.. that has been allowed to negotiate a settlement when the DEA has decided that they have violated the DEA regulations..
Another example of our TWO TIERED legal system ?
Filed under: General Problems
We definitely have a multi-tiered legal system. Everyone is not treated equal. It has probably always been this way and will probably always be that way. So, it is hard to say that we have a ‘justice’ system. There is really no justice to it. It seems quite strange to me that the DEA fines a corporation instead of the individual pharmacists that broke the law(assuming a law was broken). But, when you think about it, it is not really about punishing the people that broke the law. It is about the MONEY. In the case of the docs, as you say, they confiscate everything he has. But, assuming the DEA fined the individual pharmacists, just how much money would they get? Probably very little. So, they go after the money! This is why I have no respect for the DEA.