Walgreens Contributed To Opioid Crisis, Jury Finds

DEERFIELD, IL — Walgreens is among three drugstores that fueled the opioid crisis by failing to adequately monitor prescriptions, a federal jury has found.

On Tuesday, a Cleveland jury ruled against Walgreens, CVS and Walmart in a case that's part of national litigation on opioid prescriptions, court records show. The pharmacies were found guilty of failing to properly monitor opioid prescriptions, therefore contributing to a public health crisis, Bloomberg reported.

Ohio's Trumbull and Lake Counties sued the companies, arguing they broke the law by failing to create systems to detect illegitimate opioid prescriptions, according to Bloomberg.

"The law requires pharmacies to be diligent in dealing drugs," attorney for the counties Mark Lanier said, as reported by the Associated Press. "This case should be a wake-up call that failure will not be accepted."

Trumbull and Lake Counties want the companies to pay a combined $2.4 billion to "replenish depleted budgets for drug treatment, social services and police," Bloomberg reported.

In May, a judge will hear arguments regarding the counties' compensation claims, according to The Associated Press.

All three companies have promised to appeal the decision on grounds that it ran contrary to the facts and misapplied public nuisance law, Reuters reported, and Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman said in a statement that his company never manufactured or marketed opioids.

"Nor did we distribute them to the 'pill mills' and internet pharmacies that fueled this crisis," Engerman said, as reported by USA Today.

Engerman called the case an unsustainable effort "to resolve the opioid crisis with an unprecedented expansion of public nuisance law," USA Today said.

The case is one of over 3,300 opioid lawsuits filed against drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies, Reuters said.

Many companies have agreed to proposed global settlements, the news outlet said, and a judge urged the pharmacies to settle as well —but they elected to go to trial instead.

Now, Reuters said, the case's verdict has bolstered state and local government's efforts to negotiate settlements for thousands of other lawsuits against the pharmacy chains.

"You can be sure the message from this jury is going to be talked about in the boardrooms of every corporation involved in the pharmaceutical chain that's involved in this litigation," Joe Rice, a lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, told Reuters.