By the time drug enforcement agents swooped into his small medical office in Martinsville, Virginia, in 2017, Dr. Joel Smithers had prescribed about a half a million doses of highly addictive opioids in two years.
By the time drug enforcement agents swooped into his small medical office in Martinsville, Va., in 2017, Dr. Joel Smithers had prescribed about a half a million doses of highly addictive opioids in two years.
Authorities say that, instead of running a legitimate medical practice, Smithers headed an interstate drug distribution ring that contributed to the opioid abuse epidemic in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia. “People only went there for one reason, and that was just to get pain medication that they [could] abuse themselves or sell it for profit,” Dziedzic said.
During his trial, Smithers testified that after he moved to Virginia, he found himself flooded with patients from other states who said many nearby pain clinics had been shut down. Smithers said he reluctantly began treating these patients, with the goal of weaning them off high doses of immediate-release drugs.
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