A Charleston Gazette-Mail investigation in 2016 revealed that drug companies shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia over a six-year period, as more than 1,700 state residents died from overdoses of the drugs. That’s enough to provide 433 pills for every person (including children) in the state.

Drug distributors, including the largest drug company in the U.S., McKesson Corp., seemingly looked the other way while shipping massive amounts of the drugs to small mom-and-pop pharmacies.7 McKesson was under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for years, with investigators amassing evidence that the company failed to report suspicious orders for painkillers, turning a blind eye and sending massive amounts of the drugs to pharmacies supplying drug rings.

A joint investigation by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes revealed the DEA team working on the case wanted to revoke the company’s registrations to distribute controlled substances from 30 of the company’s drug warehouses, along with fining them more than $1 billion.8 There was more than enough evidence that the company “failed to review orders for suspicious activity,” “supplied controlled substances in support of criminal diversion activities” and “ignored [their] own procedures designed to prevent diversion.”

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