CVS will pay record fine over sale of drug
The nation's largest pharmacy chain will pay a record fine for illegally selling large amounts of a key methamphetamine ingredient to criminal traffickers, a problem that prosecutors say led to a surge in production of the widely abused drug in California.
CVS Pharmacy Inc. agreed to pay a $75-million fine and forfeit $2.6 million in profits on the unlawful sales of pseudoephedrine in California and Nevada in 2007 and 2008, according to federal prosecutors based in Los Angeles.
The company admitted that
CVS stores in California, Nevada and 23 other states were vulnerable for more than a year to criminals who bought enough PSE through repeated purchases to make methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant abused in epidemic proportions and linked to violence and other crimes.
CVS blamed the problem on the flawed implementation of an electronic monitoring system that was supposed to guard against excessive purchases. [Yeah, riiiiiight.]
In an effort to curb the production of methamphetamine,
the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 required retailers to store PSE products behind the counter, check purchasers' identifications and limit sales to the equivalent of one package a day and three a month. Customers also had to sign for each purchase.
Prosecutors said the company fixed the problem only after discovering that the government had opened an investigation.
"CVS's flagrant violation" made the company "a direct link in the methamphetamine supply chain," said Michele M. Leonhart, acting administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Meth makers targeted CVS stores, especially in the Los Angeles and Las Vegas areas, sometimes "cleaning out store shelves," according to a news release announcing the agreement Thursday.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Shana T. Mintz, who led negotiations with CVS on behalf of the government, said that
from September 2007 through November 2008, CVS sold more generic pseudoephedrine in Southern California stores than in their stores in the rest of the country combined.
Mintz said investigators found many CVS customers who made up to a dozen purchases in a single store in one day. One customer made 10 transactions in 53 minutes at a CVS in Huntington Park, she said.