https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/03/doctor-joel-smithers-gets-40-years-in-prison-for-prescribing-over-500000-opioid-doses
But the pushers who run the companies that made and pushed these drugs haven't personally been punished so far.
Oct. 3, 2019
A doctor who prosecutors said ran a medical practice in Virginia like an interstate drug distribution ring was sentenced on Wednesday to 40 years in prison for illegally prescribing opioids.
Dr Joel Smithers was sentenced in US district court in Abingdon. Judge James Jones sentenced Smithers to 40 years. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of life.
Smithers was convicted in May of more than 800 counts of illegally distributing opioids, including oxycodone and oxymorphone that caused the death of a West Virginia woman.
Authorities say Smithers prescribed more than 500,000 doses of opioids to patients from Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Tennessee while based in the small western Virginia town of Martinsville from 2015 to 2017. Martinsville has a population of roughly 13,000.
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US attorney Thomas Cullen said the sentence, while severe, “serves as just punishment” for Smithers’ actions.
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