As legal battles between pharmaceutical companies and a number of local, state, tribal, and now federal government groups heat up, a new report implicates the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in the ongoing opioid crisis.
Ultimately, the report argues that the DEA contributed to the spread of the opioid crisis, and concludes that the DEA is not doing enough to help address the problem.
New Report Calls Out DEA
The new report was completed and published by the U.S. Department of Justice via the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).
In the report, the OIG lays out a number of findings related to opioid misuse in the U.S. These findings are based on a comprehensive review of the DEA’s activities on the opioid front from 2010 through 2017.
In particular, the review sought to determine how effective the DEA was at helping to curb opioid misuse. Especially during the years that things grew into what is now recognized as a national crisis.
Here are some of the key conclusions from the report:
- As per the Executive Summary: “We found that DEA was slow to respond to the significant increase in the use and diversion of opioids since 2000.”
- The OIG also concluded that the “DEA did not use its available resources, including its data systems and strongest administrative enforcement tools, to detect and regulate diversion effectively.”
- Additionally, the OIG’s report said that the DEA did not hold accountable bad actors who contributed to the crisis.
- Analyzing both the present moment and where things might be headed in the future, the report also concluded “that while the Department and DEA have recently taken steps to address the crisis, more work is needed.”