Report: Trump’s White House Pharmacy Handed Out Pills As If They Were Candy

Folks often wonder why former president Donald Trump is always sniffing, or speaking a word salad, or slurring his words, and even appearing sweaty and disheveled. Now I’m not saying that this is why he’s doing all this but apparently, during his time in office, the White House was one big pill party. Pharmacists were reportedly handing out uppers and downers like they were candy.

That’s according to a new report from the Department of Defense Inspector General, Rolling Stone reports. And the 80-page report, released on January 8 appears extensively researched. It found that “all phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems due to the unit’s reliance on ineffective internal controls to ensure compliance with pharmacy safety standards.”

Sounds like something that would happen in the Trump White House, now doesn’t it?

The investigation got off the ground in 2018 after the Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) received complaints about improper medical procedures happening within the White House Medical Unit, and it found a heap of compliance issues and improper safety standards. The medical unit’s operations are covered under the jurisdiction of the White House Military Office and it covers the period between 2009 and 2018. As you might expect, a majority of its findings coalesced between 2017 and 2019 — the height of the Trump administration.

Indeed, during Trump’s time, the pharmacy kept sloppy, handwritten records, poured mountains of money into brand-name medications, and failed to comply with a mountain of federal law and Department of Defense regulations governing the handling, distribution, and disposal of prescription medication.

Included in the report were careful in-person inspections as well as interviews with more than 120 officials, and it concluded “that the White House Medical Unit provided a wide range of health care and pharmaceutical services to ineligible White House staff in violation of Federal law and regulation and DoD policy. Additionally, the White House Medical Unit dispensed prescription medications, including controlled substances, to ineligible White House staff.”

Maybe the place was one big party while Trump was in office. Imagine these folks getting all the medication they need and much more while so more people have been kicked off Medicaid now that the COVID-19 public health emergency is considered officially over. Nearly 1.8 million people have lost their coverage yet there were plenty of jerks in the White House receiving medications they probably don’t need.

Tragic.

But as it continued the investigation, one witness told the DoD OIG that pharmacy staff continually prepared go-bags of prescription meds for White House staff in advance of overseas trips. “One of our requirements was to go ahead and make packets up for the controlled medications.

One witness told the DoD OIG that pharmacy staff regularly prepared go-bags of prescription medication to White House staff in advance of overseas trips. “One of our requirements was to go ahead and make packets up for the controlled medications. And those would typically be Ambien or Provigil and typically both,” the witness said. “So we would normally make these packets of Ambien and Provigil, and a lot of times they’d be in like five tablets in a zip-lock bag. And so traditionally too, we would hand these out.”

Ambien is a sedative used for insomnia, while Provigil is a stimulant that’s used to treat narcolepsy. Both are considered controlled medications.

That’s not all the witness had to say, adding that “a lot of times the senior staff would come by or their staff representatives … would come by the residence clinic to pick it up. And it was very much a ‘hey, I’m here to pick this up for Ms. X. And the expectation was we just go ahead and pass it out.” But as Rolling Stone reports, passing out medication often undersold the problem, and the report found that over-the-counter drugs were frequently left out in bins for staff to grab whenever it suited them to do so.

Costs for these brand-name drugs were astronomical and the report found that between 2017 and 2019, the White House “spent an estimated $46,500 for brand-name Ambien, which is 174 times more expensive than the generic equivalent,” and “an estimated $98,000 for brand-name Provigil, which is 55 times more expensive than the generic equivalent.”

That’s just disgusting when so many Americans are dying because they don’t have the healthcare that they need.

The DoD OIG concluded the report by recommending that the Director of the Defense Health Agency work alongside the White House to develop stricter policies aimed at controlling and managing prescription medication. The report also suggests that the White House “establish controls for White House patient eligibility within the Military Health System,” and suggests the unit be placed under an oversight plan helmed by senior DoD health officials.

If the recommendations are implemented successfully, this will hopefully prevent the White House from turning back into a pill factory for the executive branch in future administrations.

Since these medications were so easy to come by during the Trump administration it makes me wonder if this is indeed why we’ve seen a bloated, sweating, obviously uncoordinated Donald Trump turning a speech into a word salad rant.

Can’t help but wonder about that.