Here's How Many Pain Pills Watchung-Area Pharmacies Receive

WATCHUNG/GREENBROOK, NJ — A new report shows billions of painkillers flowed through nearly 83,000 pharmacies across the country, including many in and around Watchung, including Green Brook. A previously unreleased database managed by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration logged where roughly 70 billion pills containing oxycodone and hydrocodone were shipped to, The Washington Post reported Monday.

While the database doesn’t specify what happened after the pharmacies received the shipments, it does illuminate the sheer number of pills that flooded communities. The data includes numbers from 2006 to 2012, the Post reported. Chain and retail pharmacies were included.

According to the database, 39 pharmacies within five miles of Watchung received 15.3 million pills from 2006 to 2012. Many of the same pharmacies were listed when Green Brook was searched in the database.

Here are some numbers the database found for the individual pharmacies:

CVS
780 Route 22 East, North Plainfield
Pills received: 1.1 million

CVS
137 Route 22, Green Brook
Pills received: 981,700

Boro Hall Healthcare
565 Bound Brook Road, Middlesex
Pills received: 844,000

Drug Mart
1249 West 7th St., South Plainfield
Pills received: 629,300

Walgreens
440 South Washington Ave., Piscataway
Pills received: 987,900

Stelton Pharmacy
179 Stelton Road, Piscataway
Pills received: 626,670

Devines Pharmacy
374 North Ave., Dunellen
Pills received: 909,400

Castrodel Drug Corp.
62 Mountain Boulevard, Warren
Pills received: 606,200

Walgreens
110 Mountain Boulevard, Warren
Pills received: 293,530

Drug Fair of Warren
110 Mountain Boulevard, Warren
Pills received: 402,840

Landmark pharmacy
345 Somerset St., North Plainfield
Pills received: 542,760

Park Madison Pharmacy
400 West Front St., Plainfield
Pills received: 19,930

Park Madison Pharmacy
204 East Front St., Plainfield
Pills received: 19,930

Plainfield Drugs, Plainfield
603 West 4th St.
Pills received: 183,300

Five pharmacies in Kentucky, Illinois, Idaho and Kansas received the most painkillers per person each year, the Post found. With a total of nearly 6.8 million pills, Shearer Drug in Clinton County, Kentucky, saw the most pills per person per year at 96.

Areas deluged with pain pills saw far higher death rates related to opioids, the Post found. While the national rate was 4.6 deaths per 100,000 residents, counties that received the most pain pills per person saw rates that were more than three times higher.

Perhaps the most startling finding was that just 15 percent of pharmacies received nearly half of the pain pills.

According to the latest provisional data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were nearly 68,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States last year, a 5 percent decline from 2017. The agency predicted that number will rise to more than 680,000 once all data is reported to them.

In its previous report in July, the Post said 75 percent of the pills distributed in the seven-year period came from six companies with pharmacies: McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS and Walmart. Four other companies were identified by the paper as being among the top 10 distributors of opioids: Smith Drug Co., Rite Aid, Kroger and H.D. Smith.

Patch national staffers Dan Hampton and Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this report.

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com