Watchdog: DEA allowed increase of opioid production as overdose deaths rose

BY JESSIE HELLMANN - 10/01/19 10:21 AM EDT 30

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The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) allowed drug makers to increase production of opioids even as overdose deaths were skyrocketing, according to a government watchdog’s scathing report released Tuesday. 

 

While opioid overdose deaths grew by 71 percent per year between 2013 and 2017, the DEA authorized manufacturers to produce “substantially larger amounts of opioids,” reads a report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General. 

 

The DEA was “slow” to address the opioid epidemic and did not start reducing the number of pills drug makers were permitted to make until 2017, the report says.

 

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