Houston Doctor Convicted of Running a Pill Mill

HOUSTON, TX — Call 'em what you want: doc in a box, pain clinics, pill mills — it doesn't matter. For years they filled broken-down strip centers in parts of town that didn't get the message about Rick Perry's 'Texas Miracle.'

They were strictly cash and carry businesses, it didn't matte what the patients claimed they had, the medication was always the same: hydro or oxycodone, Xanax and Soma. The combination got nicknamed trail mix and the Houston Cocktail.

The pills were so easy to get that honest, hard working drug dealers were going legit.

The logic was simple: why bother buying something that was stepped on or cut with God knows what, when you could go to some doc with half-a-mil in medical school debt who'll write a scrip for an FDA approved high?

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Sure, the doc would only write one scrip a month, but there were dozens of other docs who'd write another scrip the same day. It seemed like the party would never end. Until it did, and the pill mill gold rush came to an end.

It started with a major DEA crackdown, dozens of doctors lost their licenses or went to jail. Then, in 2010, Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, reworked the formula to make it harder to get high.

There were still some die-hard pill poppers out there, just like there were still some crooked doctors who sold sketchy scrips, but it wasn't happening at nearly the same level.

Now, when the "silent epidemic of opiate addiction" is on the evening news, it's rare to hear about a doctor who is still running a pill mill. Which is why it was odd to see that the U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuted Houston doctor Richard Arthur Evans, 71, on 19 counts of distributing oxycodone and hydrocodone.

It wasn't odd that Evans was prosecuted, it was odd that he was even still running a pill mill.

Evans conspired with David Devido, 78, a pharmacist, to sell pills at a rate that seems all too familiar to anyone who lived through Houston in the mid-2000's. Evans would charge patients $200-$240 for an 'office visit' to treat their 'pain.'

He'd sign off on a prescription of oxy or hydrocodone and send them to Devido's Galleria-area pharmacy. The patients were told that they could get more scrips if they sent money orders to Evans' office once a month.

Evans' staff would take the scrips to Briargrove Pharmacy, owned by Devido, where the pharmacy staff would then mail the pills to the patients. More than 800 of Evans' patients were from the Baton Rouge, LA area.

Over a two-year period, Evans and Devido distributed about 1.6 million doses of hydro or oxycodone and netted about $2.5 million doing it. A single pill retails on the street for about $40, less if you know a guy.

Evans was convicted on one count of conspiracy, five counts of illegal distribution of narcotics, eight counts of mail fraud and five counts of money laundering.

He faces a 10 year minimum sentence and could be required to pay up to $5 million in fines.