CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

Walmart to Severely Limit Opioid Dispensing at Pharmacies

The retailer will only dispense a weeks worth of prescription opioids.

Walmart announced on Monday that it won’t provide patients with more than a seven-day supply of prescription opioids in an effort to curb the opioid epidemic, according to Reuters. The company said the prescription restrictions will begin “within the next 60 days” and will apply to all Walmart and Sam’s Club locations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The company also said that by 2020, it will require e-prescriptions for all controlled substances, saying that digital prescriptions are “proven to be less prone to errors and cannot be altered or copied.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 115 Americans die every day on average from opioid overdose.