Capito’s bipartisan bill targets pill mills that flood communities with opioids

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) on Dec. 17 introduced a bipartisan bill to combat illegal pill mills around the United States. 

“Our recent history in West Virginia, where millions of prescription opioids flowed freely into small communities throughout the state, demonstrates all too clearly why continued action is needed to ensure suspicious orders of controlled substances are detected, stopped, and those responsible held accountable,” Sen. Capito said. 

The senator is an original cosponsor of the Preventing Pill Mills Through Data Sharing Act, S. 3070, with bill sponsor U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to provide the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) with additional tools to hold drug distributors, manufacturers and pharmacies accountable for identifying, reporting and stopping suspicious orders of controlled substances, according to a bill summary provided by Sen. Capito’s office. 

“I’m glad to join Senator Feinstein in introducing this legislation that builds on our past bipartisan work and provides much needed next steps to guarantee the mistakes of the past are not repeated,” said Sen. Capito. 

If enacted, S. 3070 would require drug manufacturers and distributors to report the sale, delivery or other disposal of all controlled substances on a monthly, rather than quarterly basis, and would extend the penalties and reporting requirements currently applied to drug manufacturers and distributors to pharmacies, according to the summary. 

Additionally, the DEA would be required to provide quarterly reports to manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies that better facilitate the identification of suspicious orders, and would have to provide Congress with the same reports that it provides to states every six months, according to the summary. 

“Thousands of opioids, often bought from pharmacies, are flooding our communities and leading to devastatingly high levels of addiction and prescription drug-related overdose deaths,” added Sen. Feinstein. “We cannot allow pharmacies to order far more drugs than they can responsibly distribute, and drug manufacturers and distributors to supply them.”