For nearly two years, Heather Marks, a nurse practitioner at the Lifeforce Pain and Wellness clinic in Carthage, Tennessee, wrote prescriptions for nearly one million opioid pills to almost 1,000 patients. On Monday, a federal jury convicted her of conspiracy to illegally distribute controlled substances and eight counts of illegally distributing controlled substances. She is scheduled to be sentenced September 1. Each count carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The Department of Justice described what happened in plain terms: "Marks ignored obvious signs of Lifeforce patients taking illegal drugs at the time she prescribed them opioids, which put these patients in danger of overdosing. Marks further prescribed opioids to Lifeforce patients who she knew were likely selling the opioids on the street."

Marks was not acting alone. She was part of a broader scheme involving nine Middle Tennessee medical workers indicted together in what federal officials called a "major regional drug round-up." The case required the combined resources of the FBI, the HHS Office of Inspector General, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to unravel.

The nearly 1,000 patients at Lifeforce were not strangers to addiction. According to prosecutors, many were already addicted to illegal drugs when Marks prescribed them oxycodone and oxymorphone. She continued prescribing for close to two years. The opioid crisis has devastated Tennessee communities, and cases like this one are a direct part of why.

The sentencing is September 1. We're calling on the federal court to impose the maximum sentence available under the law and on prosecutors to seek full restitution for victims and their families. The patients at Lifeforce paid a serious price for what happened at that clinic. The sentence should reflect that.

But accountability for one person is not the whole answer. Marks prescribed nearly one million pills over 20 months at a single pain clinic before anyone stopped her. That timeline demands a harder look at oversight. We're calling on the Tennessee Board of Nursing to strengthen monitoring requirements for nurse practitioners who prescribe controlled substances, and on the DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services to require real-time prescription monitoring at pain management facilities nationwide, so patterns like this cannot go undetected for nearly two years.