Kentucky sued the drug store chain CVS on Wednesday, accusing the company of “fueling” the opioid crisis that has ravaged the commonwealth.
“As both distributor and pharmacy, CVS was in a unique position to monitor and stop the peddling of these highly-addictive drugs from their stores,” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said in a statement. “Yet they ignored their own safeguard systems.”
One CVS in Perry County (about 100 miles southeast of Lexington) purchased over 6.8 million dosage units of oxycodone and hydrocodone from 2006 to 2014, Cameron said. That was enough opioids to supply every man, woman and child in the county with over 26 pills every year during that time period.
Another CVS, this one in Crittenden County (about 200 miles west of Louisville), bought over 2.8 million doses of opioid drugs, Cameron said. That was enough to supply everyone in the county with over 34 pills every year during that same eight-year period.
In total, CVS purchased more than 151 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone between 2006 and 2014 — more than 6 percent of the dosage units in the state during that time, according to the complaint filed in Franklin Circuit Court.
“Despite supplying staggering quantities of opioids in Kentucky, CVS reported zero suspicious orders for its Kentucky stores,” Cameron’s statement said.
In response, CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis said, “We are prepared to defend against these allegations.”
“Opioids are made and marketed by drug manufacturers, not pharmacies,” DeAngelis said in an email to NBC News. “Pharmacists dispense opioid prescriptions written by licensed physicians for a legitimate medical need. Pharmacists do not—and cannot—write prescriptions. Nor do they – or can they – examine patients, conduct tests, diagnose medical conditions, or determine medical treatment. That is the role of physicians, who have the responsibility to write appropriate prescriptions.”
CVS, DeAngelis added, has “been a leader when it comes to helping fight prescription opioid abuse and misuse.”
Kentucky had the ninth-highest opioid death rate in the country in 2018, with 23.4 fatalities per 100,000 people, according to the most recent National Institute on Drug Abuse figures.
The Bluegrass State also had one of the highest opioid prescription rates in the country, with 79.5 per 100 people, according to the agency’s figures.
CVS is not the only pharmacy giant the AG’s office has targeted.
The suit that Cameron, a Republican and the first African American to hold that office in Kentucky, filed against CVS is similar to the one he filed in 2018 against Walgreens, accusing the company of exacerbating the “man-made” opioid crisis by distributing and dispensing millions of prescription drug doses and not raising alarms.
Cameron alleged CVS had a “dual role in the opioid supply chain” as both a distributor and pharmacy but failed to comply with laws to protect customers from addiction and abuse.
“Leading up to and during the height of the opioid epidemic, CVS also participated in the marketing, advertising, and promotion of opioid products, working with manufacturers like Purdue Pharma and Endo Pharmaceuticals,” Cameron’s statement said. “The lawsuit states that CVS improperly normalized the widespread use of opioids by participating in these efforts.”
Kentucky has also sued drugmakers like Johnson & Johnson and various subsidiaries, accusing the firms of using deceptive marketing schemes to flood the state with opioid-based prescription painkillers.
Kentucky was one of the states that saw a surge in drug overdose deathsin spring 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic was accelerating across the United States.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
