Feds bust Alabama doctors, as state leads nation in pain pill use - AL.com
Birmingham diabetes doctor Peter Alan Lodewick wrote a number of prescriptions for pain killers in the past two years. He wrote them for his housekeeper, Margaret, her son Willie, Willie's daughter Raven, Willie's girlfriend Susie, and four other people, according to his plea agreement. Specifically, Lodewick wrote prescriptions for the powerful opiates oxycodone, morphine sulfate, norcos, and the narcotic stimulant adderall, his plea agreement states. He wrote about 390 prescriptions for about 22,796 pills from January 2013 to December 2014. Lodewick was released following his arraignment on May 21 in U. S. District Court in Birmingham on the charge of illegally helping Margaret and others... He was one of several charged by federal authorities in "Operation Pilluted," an investigation that targeted prescription pill abuse in the South. Alabama has seen a rising problem with opiate addiction and painkiller prescription rates that are the highest in the nation. Andrew Kolodny, the New York-based president of Physicians for Responsible Opiod Prescribing, said that most doctors who overprescribe opiates are responsible practitioners, albeit naïve to the often ruinous and overpowering effects of chemical... Source: www.al.com
