Dan Schneider, the Pharmacist

In today’s episode, we’re going to take another look at the opioid crisis, but this time from a pharmacist’s perspective. Dan Schneider is not just any pharmacist. He is a vigilante who helped bring down his son’s killer, a pill mill, and one of Earth’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

In 1999, Dan Schneider’s son Danny was murdered while buying crack cocaine in New Orleans’s streets. He was only 22 years old. 

The night of his son’s murder changed Dan Schneider’s life forever. He made a deal with God. If God could help him find his son’s killer, he would devote his life to help others. That night, Dan Schneider went from being a regular guy just like you and me to somebody stronger. Some might call it determination. But most people would call him downright obsessed.

A pill mill

Picture a map of southern Louisiana. Now, imagine if we dropped a pin on top of every doctor’s office who wrote a prescription for an opioid or pain killer. You wouldn’t be able to see New Orleans because it would be covered in pins. But let’s zoom in. You would think that most of the pins would be gathered around the medical district. But that wasn’t always the case. 

If we slide the map east, past the city of New Orleans, and follow along Chef Highway, you’ll notice all the red pins jammed on top of each other over one location—a little yellow one-story building. It’s an unassuming pediatric clinic. If you open the door and walk in, you will find yourself in a sea of tiny chairs, you know, the kind you typically see inside a pediatric office. But you won’t see any kids.  

Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett

That’s because Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett is no longer in the pediatric business. She’s moved on to a more lucrative clientele—drug addicts. 

Once the sun goes down, that’s when her patients started rolling in. Dr. Cleggett runs a pill mill disguised as a pain management clinic. 

Meanwhile, across town, a pharmacist named Dan Schneider worked at an independent drug store called Bradley’s Pharmacy. Every day, people would come in wanting to fill out prescriptions for pain killers. And Dan Schneider started to notice that most of these scripts were signed by the same doctor.

And these prescriptions weren’t for small doses. Dan says that Dr. Cleggett started her patients on a very high amount of Oxycontin—40 mg.

Something fishy was going on. Dan Schneider ran a printout to see how many Oxycontin scripts Dr. Cleggett was prescribing. 

He says the report repeated the same words, “Oxycontin, Oxycontin, Oxycontin, Dr. Cleggett, Dr. Cleggett, Dr. Cleggett.” Dan began investigating. 

Dan Schneider secretly taped his customers, trying to learn more about Dr. Cleggett’s operation. 

But one day, another one of Dr. Cleggett’s patients walked into his pharmacy. Her name was Sherry Lynn. Sherry Lynn came in to pick up a prescription for 40 MG of Oxycontin. She’s clearly a user. 

But it was too late. Dan Schneider had no choice but to hand her the pills.   

Dan reluctantly gave Sheri Lynn the pills but said he had an awful feeling about it. Remember, up to this point, he was refusing all prescriptions from Dr. Cleggett’s patients. A few days later, that’s when the news came in. 

Sherry Lynn crushed the pills Dan Schneider handed her and injected two syringes into her veins. Her mother found her dead of an overdose in her bedroom. 

Pharmacist turns vignette

He couldn’t stop Sheri Lynn’s death. But he also wasn’t going to let others die. You see, Dr. Cleggett wrote the script, but in Dan’s eyes, pharmacists are the last line of defense. And if he and other pharmacists fill Dr. Cleggett’s scripts, they’re just as guilty. 

Today’s episode is about one man’s obsession with shutting down a doctor who fueled the opioid epidemic’s fires. Dan Schneider’s fixation with Dr. Cleggett goes beyond his job as a pharmacist. He stalked her office and recorded hundreds of audio hours, which ultimately resulted in the destruction of Dr. Cleggett’s pill mill. 

Watch the Pharmacist on Netflix:

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Today’s episode was written by Javier Leiva and edited by Logan Castrodale.

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