8/22/2018

CHINA/DRUGS/JEFF SESSIONS/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/MEXICO/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced another crackdown on Wednesday [8-22-18] on opioids, targeting doctors and drug dealers alike in cases that spanned physicians’ offices in Ohio, drugmakers in China and online black markets…His announcement came a week after President Trump asked Mr. Sessions during a cabinet meeting at the White House to sue companies that supplied opioids and to investigate opioid trafficking from China and Mexico, calling the flood of drugs from those countries ‘almost a form of warfare.’ The president, who campaigned on targeting the opioid crisis, has also set a goal to reduce opioid prescriptions by one-third in three years. Among the three cases Mr. Sessions announced Wednesday was a complaint accusing two doctors of illegally prescribing opioids. One of the doctors was also accused of Medicare fraud and of accepting $175,000 in kickbacks from a drug manufacturer. Prosecutors want to deny both doctors the authority to prescribe drugs. Mr. Sessions also said that an Ohio couple was charged with selling fentanyl, an opioid far more powerful than heroin, and other drugs on the so-called dark web, secretive online markets known for sales of drugs, guns and other illicit goods…The government also indicted leaders of the Zheng drug trafficking organization, which is accused of manufacturing more than 250 types of synthetic opioids and other drugs in China, then distributing them in the United States and other countries.”

Katie Benner, “Snaring Doctors and Drug Dealers, Justice Dept. Intensifies Opioid Fight,” The New York Times online, August 22, 2018