Letter: Coons’ solution to opioid epidemic self-aggrandizing

As I read the commentary column by Sen. Chris Coons (Feb. 2 Cape Gazette) I could not believe that this legislator was patting himself on the back for introducing a bill that, in his view, will “…prevent prescription opioids from flooding our communities…”  I found this proposed solution presumptuous, hypocritical and disingenuous because it is a shallow attempt at restoring a power that the Drug Enforcement Agency had and diligently performed before Congress stripped it away from the DEA. 

That 2016 legislative emasculation of DEA, titled The Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, was the end game, perpetrated by the mega pharmaceutical distributors, fueled with a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort employing several former U.S. Department of Justice officials acting as lobbyists. including a former deputy attorney general, which was focused on then-sitting DoJ top leaders, including the then-deputy AG. 

The objective was to rein in DEA’s ongoing efforts to hold their clients accountable for the rampant opioid distribution which Sen. Coons only now sees as an important remedy to limit opioid diversion - the so-called DEA Clearinghouse Act.  It, by the way, is just another solution that many in Congress have offered to correct their bipartisan complicity in the unjustified removal of a key DEA power and to otherwise disassociate them from what has been recognized as ex post facto abuse of legislation. They were shocked and appalled to learn that this law had been enacted and wanted to undo it - locking the door after the opioids have already done their deadly damage.

For anyone interested in viewing the senator’s solution in a clearer and less self-serving light, I suggest they do a bit of simple contrasting fact research and look into the Polk award-winning inquiry multipart series mounted by The Washington Post on this topic and later extended in a collaborative production with CBS news series “60 Minutes” - both of which are easily retrievable online.  It will just take a few minutes to see that this proposed solution is really a backhanded way for the senator to casually imply that DEA did not do its job and thus offer cover, yet again, to the distributors. This by moving them further away from their statutory legal responsibility to self monitor and report suspicious controlled drug orders to DEA.

The history of distributors failing to act on DEA warnings is clear, and when they found themselves facing serious penalties it was Congress that capitulated with them in emasculating the DEA Diversion Program by removing one of its most effective tools against willfully blind, avaricious distributors it had identified in the past and continued to pursue. Those efforts by DEA resulted in multimillion-dollar fines to major distributors in settlements with DoJ without their having to admit guilt to avoid more stringent prosecutions.

The prior legislation slid through Congress in 2016 on greased wheels by unanimous consent vote meaning that it was never subject to review, debate or floor discussion, a process normally limited to noncontroversial bills. It was signed into law by President Obama. Both Obama and the DoJ and the acting DEA administrator - a DoJ attorney himself - declined to comment on how the bill came to pass, The Post noted.  In the controversy that ensued after the bill was passed, congressional representatives from both parties were quick to exonerate themselves, saying that DEA never objected to the bill so they saw no need to question it, or likely even read it. 

As the Post’s investigation revealed, it was the pressure exerted on DEA executive management by then-current DoJ top officials, swayed by lobbyists for the distributors cartel to curtail the diversion division’s active program to hold distributors accountable for their statutory obligation to monitor and report suspected improper shipment of orders and serially failing to do so despite DEA’s repeated efforts to alert them.  

That pressure resulted in the leadership of the diversion program heading that effort being reassigned and efforts to crack down on the distributors reduced. The distributor’s money and Congress’s leverage had won out. The question to be asked here is where was Sen. Coons, and the rest of the Delaware congressional delegation, when that bill was being put forward in 2016 and why, only now, has he awoken from the slumber that had him sit silent when the opportunity was at hand to do what was needed three years ago? 

Now that he has spoken he needs to go further and admit that he and others in Congress failed to do what was needed of them back then and to stop making it appear that DEA did not have what it needed in “…real time…” to hold distributors accountable.  But it’s easier for the legislators to shift blame to DEA, which is doing all it can to protect the American public, because the agency does not make fat campaign contributions. A case of history repeating itself yet again when it comes to special- interest big money “campaign contributions” to our legislators - shameful.

Matt Maher
Lewes
retired DEA agent