DEA deputy director resigns; He was an advisor to pharmaceutical companies

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The DEA’s deputy director quietly resigned amid reports by The Associated Press that he once consulted for a pharmaceutical distributor sanctioned for large numbers of painkiller shipments, and did similar work for the flagship drugmaker of the DEA. opioid epidemic: Purdue Pharma.

Louis Milione spent four years as a consultant to pharmaceutical companies before his 2021 return to the US Drug Enforcement Agency as top deputy to Administrator Anne Milgram, renewing concerns of a revolving door between the agency and industry and its impact on the agency’s mission. DEA to police companies blamed for thousands of overdose deaths.

“Working for Purdue Pharma shouldn’t help you get a high-ranking government job,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a group that monitors the influence of big corporations in the public sector. “So close is a problem. It’s hard for anyone to see their past, and potentially future, colleagues as breaking the law. Any independent person would find it abhorrent.”

Milione initially left the DEA in 2017 after a 21-year career that included two years as director of the unit that controls the sale of highly addictive narcotics. Like dozens of his colleagues in the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, he went on to work as a consultant for some of the companies he formerly made it his mission to police.

The AP reported in May that Milione’s consulting included testifying on behalf of the country’s fourth-largest drug distributor, Morris & Dickson, which was trying to retain its license to sell painkillers to hospitals and pharmacies. A federal administrative judge ruled four years ago that the Louisiana-based company failed to report thousands of suspicious orders at the height of the opioid crisis, but the DEA did nothing to strip it of its license until days after the AP inquired about it. the case.

The latest investigations show that in his time in the private sector, Milione also worked as an expert, charging $600 an hour, for Purdue Pharma, which was facing lawsuits in several states for its aggressive promotion of OxyContin and other highly addictive painkillers. Milione resigned from the DEA again in June, just four days after the AP asked the Justice Department about his previous work for Purdue.

A few days ago, Milione said in a statement that he resigned for personal reasons unrelated to the AP investigations. Both he and the Justice Department said he recused himself from any matter related to his work in the private sector where there could be even the appearance of a conflict of interest.