WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration allowed manufacturers to produce more and more opioids for a decade, even as deaths from the crisis spiked, the Justice Department's inspector general said in a report released Tuesday.

The agency's production quota for oxycodone, for instance, jumped about five times between 2002 and 2013. The agency cut the quota by 25 percent in 2017. But by then, the number of people dying from overdoses of commonly prescribed opioids had reached a nearly two-decade high.

The 77-page report paints a damning image of an agency that was slow to respond to the epidemic, allowed bad actors to keep manufacturing and distributing opioids, and failed to prevent controlled substances from entering the illegal drug trade.

The report cites one fairly straightforward step the agency didn't take when approving companies to manufacture or distribute drugs: criminal background checks. Instead, it relied on applicants to disclose that information voluntarily.

More than 300,000 people have been killed by opioid overdoses in the last two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In a statement responding to the inspector general's report, the DEA said it "appreciates" the assessment, it has improved how it detects and deters bad actors, and it has imposed millions of dollars in civil penalties against drug companies.

DEA allowed drug supply to spike, failed to vet companies

From 1999 to 2013, overdose deaths grew by an average of 8 percent a year. Around the same time, the DEA authorized a five-fold increase in oxycodone production, according to the report.

Overdose deaths then skyrocketed between 2013 to 2017, growing by an average of 71 percent a year.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who sued the DEA over its quota system in 2017, said that system shares blame for the thousands of opioid-related deaths.

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"Every aspect of the pharmaceutical supply chain bears responsibility for the havoc and senseless death unleashed upon West Virginia – and the DEA is no exception," Morrisey said in a statement responding to the inspector general's report.

West Virginia had 974 overdose deaths in 2017. That's a rate of 57.8 per 100,000 people – the highest in the country.

In the past three years, the DEA said, it has cut production for the seven types of opioids most frequently abused. Opioid prescriptions have dropped by about 30 percent since President Donald Trump took office, the agency said.

The report also found gaps in the DEA's registration process, which vets and licenses companies that manufacture and distribute controlled substances, as well as health-care providers. The agency allowed companies to reapply for a license the day after it was revoked or forced to be surrendered.

"As a result, registrations that potentially pose a significant risk of diverting pharmaceutical opioids [to the illegal drug market] may be given the opportunity to do so once again," the report says.

One doctor who had his registration revoked, for example, moved to another state overseen by a different field office of the DEA and successfully applied for a new registration, the report says.

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Agency relied on the honor system when evaluating applicants

The DEA does not conduct background checks on all applicants. It "relied instead on good faith of applicants to disclose relevant information, even in cases in which the applicant had previously engaged in criminal activity," the report says. And when an applicant does not disclose criminal history and suspensions, the DEA does not inquire further.

For example, if an applicant claims not to have had a problem obtaining a state license or any allegations of misconduct, the DEA approves the application without checking with state medical and pharmacy boards.

In addition, the agency has no way of knowing whether applicants are lying, according to what a supervisor in the DEA's regulatory division told the inspector general's office.

"As a result, an applicant that falsifies answers on the application could fraudulently obtain a DEA registration," the report says.

As the number of opioid-related deaths spiked from 2013 to 2017, the DEA rarely used its strongest enforcement tool. The agency can issue an immediate suspension order if it believes there's a threat to public health.

But the agency used this authority only 43 times over the four-year period, the inspector general found — more sparingly than it did in 2012 alone, when it issued 45 immediate suspensions.

The inspector general also said the agency doesn't adequately collect, maintain and analyze data to spot trends in the use of controlled substances.

In a statement, the DEA said only a fraction of the more than 1.8 million manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies and prescribers registered with the agency are involved in illegal activity.

It also said that it took away about 900 registrations annually over the past eight years.

In 2017, the DEA levied about $194 million in civil penalties against large drug distributors. This year, the agency said it has imposed about $51 million in penalties.

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While the inspector general found the agency has taken steps to address the epidemic, including beefing up staffing and enforcement, it contends more work is needed. It said criminal background checks should be required for all applicants for registration and called for implementing electronic prescribing for all drugs that can be abused.

Watchdog recommends an end to paper prescriptions

Most illegal distribution of pharmaceutical opioids involves paper prescriptions. Several DEA employees told investigators paper prescriptions are more susceptible to fraud.

But the agency did not revise its regulations to require all prescriptions be electronic, partly because smaller pharmacies could not meet computer requirements, according to the report. It recommended the federal government follow the lead of several states and mandate electronic prescriptions.

The pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma, which made billions selling the prescription painkiller OxyContin, has been sued by thousands of plaintiffs for facilitating the opioid crisis. The company filed for bankruptcy last month as it reached a tentative settlement with local governments and states.

In August, an Oklahoma judge ordered Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries to pay $572 million for its role in the opioid crisis.

Contributing: Kevin Johnson and John Bacon

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opioid crisis: DEA allowed massive drug production despite overdoses