MARTINSVILLE, Va. (WSET) — Joel Smithers, a former doctor from Martinsville, is serving a 40-year sentence in federal prison for illegally prescribing hundreds of opioids, a practice that has had a devastating impact on the community.
According to the Virginia Department of Health, since 2007, 26 people have died from overdoses, with a number of deaths traced back to Smithers’ practice, according to police.
Ramona Hartshorn, whose daughter Heather died of an overdose linked to Smithers, said she still feels heartbroken from the loss.
“Although it’s been more than 8 and a half years since I found her that morning, it feels like just yesterday my heart was shattered into a million pieces,” she said.
The investigation into Smithers began in 2015, when a DEA task force alerted Martinsville police to suspicious activities at his office. Interim Police Chief Chad Rhoads recalled the shock of the investigation.
RELATED: Former Martinsville doctor sentenced to 40 years in federal prison: DOJ
“Most of these people who came here to get prescriptions or to have these prescriptions filled by Doctor Smithers could not get another doctor to prescribe them,” Rhoads said.
Smithers’ operation, which did not accept insurance, generated over $700,000 in cash and credit card payments. He prescribed drugs such as oxymorphone, oxycodone, and fentanyl indiscriminately. The U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that approximately 300 people from at least four states, including Ohio, regularly visited Smithers, with some receiving opioid prescriptions without being seen.
Smithers was convicted in 2019 of more than 450 counts of multiple drug charges. However, a change in law by the United States Supreme Court led to a retrial in 2024. Former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, Jonathan Fishwick, explained how that happened.
“The new law says the Department of Justice has to show the doctor or the healthcare provider had a specific criminal intent to violate the law that he or she knew that when they dispensed the drugs that they were doing it illegally to their patients,” he said.
Fishwick noted that the outcome of the 2024 trial remained the same as the initial 2019 trial.
Despite Smithers being behind bars, addiction remains a significant issue in Martinsville, which now hosts more than 15 treatment centers. Rhoads said the number of treatment centers is a result of Smithers’s actions.
“That also drove up the amount of addiction that came to this community,” he said. “You can still see today the number of treatment centers, just the aftereffects of that whole era you can still see today.”
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