One Lawyer’s Battle Against The Opioid Epidemic
Veteran Los Angeles narcotics prosecutor John Niedermann is making a name for himself as a hero by going up against doctors who overprescribe pain medication while the opioid crisis ravages the country.
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. County Prosecutor Has Played A Key Role In Crackdown On 'Pill Mill' Doctors
The battle against "pill mill" doctors in Los Angeles County began with four boxes gathering dust in a prosecutors' building downtown. The cardboard containers were stuffed with incriminating documents about a doctor so prolific at dispensing drugs that only the entire staff of Johns Hopkins Hospital had written more prescriptions for painkillers in a single month. But the boxes went largely ignored, shuttling from unit to unit within the district attorney's office before finally landing in front of veteran narcotics prosecutor John Niedermann. When he cracked open the boxes and began reading through thousands of pages of reports, he realized that the deadline for filing charges against Dr. Carlos Estiandan was just weeks away. (Gerber, 4/9)