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During the month of March, the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics worked a drug overdose case every other day, on average.
MBN Director John Dowdy said about 90 percent of those are opioid-related. In 2016, 37 health care providers were arrested by state agents for pharmaceutical diversion.
So when officials say they’re serious about cracking down on health care providers that are enabling drug addicts, they have good reason.
“Obviously they’re not getting the point, so prescribers in the state of Mississippi need to understand we’re serious about the opioid epidemic that we have, and we’re coming. You don’t want MBN and you don’t want DEA knocking at your door,” he said.
In a news conference Wednesday, officials announced that two nurse practitioners have been charged and two doctors have surrendered their DEA licenses, in addition, to a pharmacy which faces civil action, after a month-long investigation by state and federal drug agents.
Nurse practitioners Brenda Shelton, 54, of Ripley and Amanda Jones, 35, of Starkville are facing charges after the pharmaceutical diversion investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and the Drug Enforcement Administration in Tupelo, Ripley and West Point.
Shelton is charged with prescription fraud, as she was found allegedly prescribing controlled substances without a valid DEA license and without an advanced practice registered nurse license. Officials say she surrendered both licenses in 2014.
Reports from the State Board of Pharmacy show she wrote 55 controlled substance prescriptions over two years.
Jones was arrested for allegedly writing prescriptions for Adderall, which is a Schedule II controlled substance, in the name of a family member. The prescriptions would then be filled at local pharmacies. She surrendered her DEA license earlier this month.
Dr. William Bell, 49, of Tupelo, has not been charged at this point in the investigation, but surrendered his DEA license for allegedly prescribing controlled pharmaceutical drugs. Authorities say he was practicing outside the scope of an emergency room physician when he was found to be writing prescriptions for Adderall and Clonazepam, which is a Schedule IV controlled substance. Bell was allegedly writing the prescriptions for himself, family members and friends.
Dr. Dwalia South, 62, of Ripley also has not been charged at this point, but was allegedly conspiring with Shelton to conceal the fact that Shelton was writing prescriptions by writing her name under Shelton’s on old prescriptions.
Authorities say South and Shelton then worked with Hollis Discount Pharmacy of Ripley to alter the prescriptions in the Board of Pharmacy’s prescription monitoring program.
Hollis Discount Pharmacy faces civil action for its involvment in the conspiracy, officials said.
Public Safety Commissioner Marshall Fisher said an average of 90 people a day die of drug overdoses around the country, which he likened to the same amount as if two jumbo jets crashed each week.
“The lions share of those are prescription drug overdoses,” he said. “This is important. It’s not about putting people in prison. We’re not going to arrest our way out of this. We’ve got to get the attention of these health care providers.”
In 2011, heroin began showing up on the radar in Mississippi, but most of it was in interdiction stops, as it was on its way to Atlanta or Chicago on the interstates. But year after year, it has increased as a problem until in 2016, law enforcement around the state made 279 heroin seizures. Fisher said that’s not because of overzealous law enforcement cracking down on prescription drugs as some people suggest.
“If you want to believe that, it’s fine, you can believe in the Easter Bunny, too,” he said. “It’s because there’s an overprescribing and overproduction of opioids represented as medication you can take as simple as Tylenol or Advil.”
Adderall is one prescription drug that shows up on the radar quite a bit, MBN Deputy Director Steven Maxwell said.
“It’s a drug of choice for all ages. It used to be college kids, but now it’s adults, too. For the illicit user, it’s a good drug and it’s easily obtained,” he said.
And heroin is cheaper and easier to come by in the end, so drug users will make the switch. Recent studies show that half of heroin abusers report abusing prescription opioids before they moved to heroin.
Fisher and Dowdy were appointed in the last year by Gov. Phil Bryant, and both stated the opioid epidemic will be a focus of state drug enforcement resources. On Wednesday, they made it clear it doesn’t matter if you’re a dealer in an alley or a dealer in a doctor’s office.
“If we find out that your prescription habits are causing addiction problems, we’ll come find you,” Dowdy said. “If we have overdose deaths related to your prescribing habits, let this serve as notice to the health care professionals in this state, we’re not playing around anymore.”