On Thursday, June 14, 2018, the State of Kentucky’s Attorney General, Andy Beshear, filed a lawsuit against Walgreens with the premise that the popular drug store is a contributor to the current opioid crisis as both a pharmacy chain and as a wholesale drug distributor. Beshear claims that Walgreens used, “unlawful business practices" to promote these potentially harmful medications to the people of Kentucky.Walgreens in under scrutiny for filling opioid prescriptions over the past ten years that were in large doses and were also frequently filled. The lawsuit claims that Walgreens dispensed opioids at “such an alarming rate and volume that there could be no legitimate medical purpose associated to their use.” The opioid epidemic affects over two million of Americans who have become dependent on these prescription pain pills. The most common prescription opioids are hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (Percocet). Fentanyl and methadone are also common synthetic opioids. In 2016 alone, opioids were the cause of 116 deaths per day in the U.S. and accounted for 66.4% of all drug overdoses. And while lawmakers are trying to decrease the amount of opioid prescriptions that are written each year, the numbers are still astounding: in 1992, 112 million opioid prescriptions were written verses 2016 in which 236 million prescriptions were written. “Estimates suggest that [opioid addiction] could amount to around $40 billion annually,” reports Douglas Sutherland of The Hill. “In 2014 alone, there were over 80,000 emergency room visits and over 60,000 hospitalizations due to opioid overdoses.” CNN states that Beshear “wants Walgreens to stop ‘over-dispensing opioids’ and ‘filling suspicious orders.’ He also wants the company to pay back the amount it earned from the allegedly illegal gains.”However, Walgreens isn’t the only company that Beshear is holding accountable for the opioid crisis in Kentucky. He has filed similar lawsuits against popular drug maker Johnson & Johnson as well as opioid distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson Corporation. Furthermore, Kentucky isn’t the only state taking action against companies that distribute or make opioids. Back in January, Delaware filed lawsuits against drug stores CVS and Walgreens along with the pharmaceutical manufacturers Purdue Pharma and Endo Pharmaceuticals plus multiple distributors. These companies were “shipping quantities of opioids around the country so enormous that they could not possibly all be for legitimate medical purposes, but they failed to take basic steps to ensure that those drugs were going only to legitimate patients,” Attorney General Denn said. “These companies ignored red flags that opioids were being diverted from legitimate channels of distribution and use to illicit channels. The failure of these corporate defendants to meet their legal obligations has had a devastating impact on Delawareans.”Florida’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, also filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of her state.
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