Opioid Distributors Sold ‘Mountain of Pills,’ Lawyer Tells Judge
- West Virginia municipality seeks $2.6 billion in damages
- Testimony in first trial against distributors starts Tuesday
Photographer: Moussa81/iStockphoto/Getty Images
The biggest drug distributors in the U.S. were accused of swamping a West Virginia county with millions of doses of painkillers as testimony is set to begin in the first trial over the companies’ role in the opioid crisis.
McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp. wrongfully “sold a mountain of opioid pills into our community, fueling the opioid epidemic,” Paul Farrell, a lawyer for Cabell County, told a judge Monday in his opening statement. The county and the city of Huntington want distributors to pay $2.6 billion to beef up treatment and policing budgets strained by years of opioid overdoses and addictions.
Drug distributors, manufacturers and retailers face thousands of similar lawsuits by state and local governments nationwide over the opioid crisis in which 400,000 Americans have died in the past two decades. West Virginia has been among the hardest-hit states, with Cabell County’s overdose-death rate being more than five times the national average during the period covered by the suit, according to researchers.