AMELIA, Ohio (WKRC) - Six pharmacies in and around Amelia sold enough oxycodone and hydrocodone to supply every man, woman and child in the village with nearly 430 pills a year over a seven-year period.
This is just one bit of information found in a huge database the DEA released to the Washington Post under a court order.
"There's heroin in there. There's opioid pills in there," said Amelia's Police Chief Jeff Wood.
But even Wood was surprised when Local 12 told him that the six pharmacies in and around town sold more than 15 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills from 2006 to 2012. That's 428 pills per year for every man, woman and child in the village.
"That's quite a few; that's quite a few narcotics,” he said.
The Village of Amelia is just one, small example of the huge problem of pill distribution in Ohio. The list is extensive. After winning a lawsuit to release pharmacy records, the Washington Post made the data available to the public.
In Kentucky, 1.9 billion hydrocodone and oxycodone pills were distributed. In Indiana, there were 2.1 billion, and in Ohio, pharmacies distributed 3.4 billion pills from 2006 to 2012.
West Chester, home to Humana Mail Order Pharmacy, tops the list. It’s a huge distributor with customers all over the country. Most of Cincinnati's 216 million pills were from neighborhood pharmacies like Walgreens, which said it has "highly trained professionals committed to dispensing legitimate prescriptions." Kroger said, "The company does not comment on pending litigation and is unable to answer your questions."
Back in Amelia, one of the pharmacies on the list is the Pill Box, which sold 1.7 million pills during the seven-year span.
The owner said, "Every prescription was filled under the definition and the spirit of the law."
He went on to say that the DEA crackdown on some of the doctors who the feds say were illegally prescribing opioids, like Dr. Raymond Noschang of Kenwood who is now under indictment, has stemmed a lot of the over-prescribing. Dr. Noschang's office said he cannot comment on pending litigation.
Amelia Police say the drop in prescribing can be seen in the lack of Narcan demand, which has dropped by about 80 percent in the last couple of years.
Local 12 also contacted CVS Pharmacy for comment but have not heard back.
