The Post gained access to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System, known as ARCOS, as the result of a court order. The Post and HD Media, which publishes the Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia, waged a year-long legal battle for access to the database, which the government and the drug industry had sought to keep secret.

The download contains raw data on shipments of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills to chain pharmacies, retail pharmacies and practitioners. You can also download summary data on the largest distributors, manufacturers and pharmacies in your county and state. The summary is one analysis of the data. There is much more that can be analyzed and reported.

We have cleaned the data to include only information on shipments of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills. We did not include data on 10 other opioids because they were shipped in much lower quantities and were diverted at far lower rates over the seven years. Diversion refers to when pills do not go directly to a patient and end up at another source, such as the black market. The Post also removed shipments that did not wind up in the hands of consumers, such as shipments from distributors to themselves. The subset of the data is very similar to how experts working on the federal court case in Ohio analyzed the data.

There are Veterans Affairs Department distribution pharmacies in Charleston, S.C., and Leavenworth, Kan., that serve the region. The DEA considers these to be retail pharmacies. However, the pills are much more likely to be spread in the region than to those counties. This is why the per capita rate of pills in those counties is far higher.

It’s important to remember that the number of pills in each county does not necessarily mean those pills went to people who live in that county. The data only shows us what pharmacies the pills are shipped to and nothing else.

The best way to understand the definitions of the columns and variables in this data set is to refer to the DEA’s ARCOS handbook , which provides detailed descriptions of the records.

We’ve been asked why we don’t have more recent data. The answer: The DEA only produced data from 2006 through 2014 in the case. We know that 2013 and 2014 data exists, but we have not been able to get access because of the ongoing court case in Ohio. The Post is still fighting for its release.