Tennessee sues Walgreens pharmacy chain over opioid distribution

Tablets of the opioid-based Hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Portsmouth, Ohio, June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston/

Aug 3 (Reuters) – The state of Tennessee sued Walgreens on Wednesday, accusing the retail pharmacy large of fueling the state’s opioid epidemic by willfully flooding the market with an oversupply of prescription narcotics in violation of client safety and public nuisance legal guidelines.

In keeping with the lawsuit, Walgreens used its place as one of many state’s largest pharmacy chains to dispense over 1.1 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone tablets inside Tennessee from 2006 to 2020, roughly equal to 175 tablets for each resident of the state.

“The sheer quantity of opioids that Walgreens launched into Tennessee was unreasonable and extremely suspicious on its face,” mentioned the 148-page lawsuit, filed in Knox County Circuit Court docket. “Walgreens totally saturated the state of Tennessee with narcotics.”

Tennessee, dwelling to almost 7 million residents, has been one of many hardest-hit within the U.S. opioid disaster, documenting a minimum of three opioid-related overdose deaths on daily basis, based on the lawsuit.

“Walgreens didn’t flood the state of Tennessee with opioids by chance. Quite, the gas that Walgreens added to the fireplace of the opioid epidemic was the results of figuring out – or willfully ignorant – company choices,” it mentioned.

Walgreens has been the goal of comparable lawsuits introduced by different jurisdictions.

In Could, its company mother or father, the Illinois-based holding firm Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O), reached a $683 million settlement with Florida to resolve claims that the pharmacy chain exacerbated an opioid epidemic in that state. However Walgreens didn’t admit to wrongdoing underneath the settlement. learn extra

“We’ll proceed to defend towards the unjustified assaults on the professionalism of our pharmacists, devoted well being professionals who reside within the communities they serve,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement emailed to Reuters on Wednesday.

“Walgreens by no means manufactured or marketed opioids, nor did we distribute them to the ache clinics and “tablet mills” that fueled this disaster,” the corporate mentioned.

In keeping with the lawsuit, Walgreens successfully grew to become a part of an “illegal managed substance promoting scheme” by ignoring quite a few indicators of suspicious opioid prescription practices.

The swimsuit cited such “pink flags” as an absence of individualized dosing; a number of prescriptions for the strongest dose out there; many shoppers with the identical analysis codes; excessive percentages of sufferers paying in money; clients steadily searching for early refills; and clients touring lengthy distances to fill prescriptions.

Tennessee’s best leap in opioid allotting, based on the lawsuit, coincided with the years 2006 to 2014 when Walgreens operated as a wholesale distributor for its personal pharmacies, thus occupying two rungs of the provision chain.

Working some 200 to 300 shops statewide, Walgreens pharmacies collectively bought 795 million opioids from distributors throughout that interval, the swimsuit mentioned. Some had been sourced from different wholesalers, however Walgreens “self-distributed” 81% of its personal retail opioid provides in that period, based on the criticism.

The same lawsuit introduced towards Walgreens and two pharmaceutical firms by the town of San Francisco is now into account by a federal decide following an 11-week trial throughout which the 2 different corporations reached a $58 million settlement with the town final month. learn extra

Individually, a federal court docket jury determined in November that Walgreens, together with fellow pharmacy chain CVS Well being Corp (CVS.N) and low cost retail large Walmart Inc (WMT.N), was accountable for serving to create a public nuisance with an alleged flood of ache tablets that wound up on the black market in two Ohio counties.

It’s now as much as a federal decide to determine what the businesses ought to pay. learn extra

Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Further reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Modifying by Kim Coghill

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