DEA Helps Distributors Avoid Oversupplying Opioids

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) continues to work with its over 1.7 million registrants to combat the United States opioid epidemic and recently added a new feature to the ARCOS Online Reporting System that will assist drug manufacturers and distributors comply with their regulatory obligations under the Controlled Substances Act.

Under current DEA regulations, distributors must “know their customer,” and have a system in place to identify and report suspicious opioid orders. Manufacturers and distributors, however, have argued that they needed additional information from the ARCOS system,the comprehensive drug reporting system that monitors the flow of controlled substances from their point of manufacture through commercial distribution channels to the point of sale at the retail level, to make informed decisions and to identify customers who are purchasing excessive quantities of controlled substances.

With the new ARCOS system upgrade, DEA registered manufacturers and distributors can now search ARCOS and view the number of competitors who have sold a particular controlled substance to a prospective customer in the last six months. If a search reveals that a large number of suppliers have recently sold opioids to a prospective purchaser, this could be considered a ‘red flag‘ to the distributor, who may not want to ship opioids to the pharmacy without investigating further.