Major pharmacies face first federal trial over role in nation's opioid crisis
In a span of eight years, 10 pharmacies dispensed nearly 49 million prescription pain pills in two counties near Cleveland enough to provide about a dozen doses to each man, woman and child who lived there every 12 months.
Now Lake and Trumbull counties are set to face off against four of the nations largest chain pharmacies in a federal trial that could serve as a litmus test for thousands of cities and counties looking to hold them accountable for their role in the nations opioid crisis.
The counties in a blue-collar, manufacturing region of Ohio claim CVS, Walgreens, Giant Eagle and Walmart failed to stop mass quantities of opioid drugs from reaching the black market, fueling hundreds of overdose deaths amid one of the worst public health crises in the nations history.
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The setting of the trial is especially grim: Overdose deaths in 2021 are set to eclipse the toll tallied when the case was filed about three years ago, Gallucci said. Nationwide, overdose deaths involving opioids reached 69,710 in 2020, a share of the more than 500,000 opioid overdose deaths since 1999. While prescription dispensing has tapered with stricter enforcement, heroin and synthetic fentanyl have contributed to to an increasing number of deaths.
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