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‘Family Physician’ Busted Selling 2.2 Million Painkillers From Upper East Side Home

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Steve Birr Vice Reporter
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Authorities arrested a respected family physician for selling more than $20 million worth of prescription painkillers out of his Upper East Side apartment in New York City.

Agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) nabbed Dr. Martin Tesher Monday, an 81-year-old man who advertised himself as an “old fashioned, family physician.” Tesher is accused of operating an opioid distribution scheme, selling prescriptions for painkillers from his brownstone on East 68th Street to patients for $500 in cash, reports PIX 11.

Prosecutors allege that Tesher wrote more than 14,000 scripts for painkillers between 2012 and January 2017. Officials estimate that he is responsible for illicitly prescribing roughly 2.2 million pills. A neighbor told police there were always “weird people coming here in the morning.”

“Dr. Tesher acted no differently than a multi-million dollar heroin ring, distributing more than $20 million dollars worth of opioids,” New York DEA Director James Hunt said Monday, according to PIX 11.

Authorities allege that Tesher knew many of his patients were addicted to the painkillers and even using heroin. He gave one woman a prescription for 15 Oxycodone pills per day on her first trip to see him.

Prescription painkillers are blamed for sparking the current opioid epidemic in states across the U.S. Officials with the DEA say four out of five new heroin addicts started with painkillers.

Americans continue to use prescription painkillers in big numbers, despite record heroin abuse and rising overdose death rates connected to opioids. More than two million Americans have some sort of physical dependence on opioids, and nearly 100 million Americans have a prescription for the drugs. Drug overdoses are now the number one cause of death for Americans under 50.

A March 3 survey from Truven Health Analytics and NPR revealed that more than half of the U.S. population reports receiving a prescription for opioids at least once from their doctor, a 7 percent increase since 2011.

Only 19 percent of respondents, however, received the painkillers for chronic pain. Seventy-four percent of respondents said doctors doled out prescription narcotics for acute pain, like after a procedure to remove wisdom teeth. Medical professionals say that doctors need to start by prescribing the least potent and least addictive pain treatment option, and then cautiously go from there.

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