A Kennebunk doctor who was accused of unnecessarily prescribing opioids and other controlled substances in 2022 was found guilty of those charges on Friday.
Merideth C. Norris, 53, of Kennebunk was arrested on Oct. 19, 2022 for illegal prescribing practices, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
An investigation found that Norris, who ran the Graceful Recovery addiction treatment center according to the Portland Press Herald, had prescribed opioids including the highly addictive oxycodone, hydromorphone and fentanyl to patients who had previously experienced opioid use disorder.
Some of Norris’ patients had also tested positive for controlled substances that are known to be addictive, without a prescription for those drugs, according to court documents. There was also evidence that Norris’ patients may have been distributing the drugs prescribed by her to others.
When Norris was asked to justify her reasoning for writing those prescriptions, she reportedly submitted an incomplete patient file to the Maine Board of Osteopathic Licensure and misrepresented her prescribing practices. According to court documents, numerous pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions she had ordered, and Walmart pharmacies issued a national ban on filling prescriptions she had penned.
After investigations by the FBI, the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency and the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, Norris was found guilty on 15 counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances.
Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Norris will be sentenced by a federal judge, according to a brief from the DOJ.
The illegal prescription of opioids led to years of litigation against prescription drug manufacturers, distributors and retailers accused of fueling the opioid epidemic that has claimed the lives of thousands of Mainers over nearly three decades.
Maine is in the process of allocating funds that are coming from a $230 million settlement procured through lawsuits against CVS Pharmacy and Walmart, and some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the country, like McKesson Corp., Mallinckrodt, Allergan and more.
In 2023, the number of overdoses from scheduled drugs which became prevalent during the opioid crisis dropped by 16 percent compared with 2022 numbers. Since 2022, a number of programs have launched around the state in an effort to reduce the number of Mainers dying from drug overdoses.
