the DEA visited them last year and performed “accountability audits” that uncovered violations of the federal Controlled Substances Act, namely through inadequate record keeping, according to records obtained by The Baltimore Banner.

At the scale of prisons, these pharmacies are called institutional pharmacies. The size, operation, automation, and throughput of institutional pharmacies is mind-blowing. For example, the biggest Costco pharmacies might process 300 scrips a day; institutional pharmacies generally handle 15000 to 30000 per day, with some being even larger.

The “inadequate record keeping” part is just idiocy. There exists automation and auditing software for this. I know because I wrote the last-mile portion of a suite that manages end-to-end compliance automation for institutional pharmacies. A single failed audit generally costs more than most of the auditing and compliance suites licensing fees. And even in small pharmacies, there’s usually more than one failed C-2 audit when it happens. And let’s be clear; these audits are always for C-2 drugs (opioids and stimulants).