Walmart, Walgreens and CVS brands had massively distributed very addictive painkillers in Ohio. Walmart has announced to appeal the judgment.
Le Monde with AFP
Walmart, Walgreens and CVS pharmacies were sentenced Wednesday August 17 by an Ohio judge in the north of the United States, to pay $ 650.6 million to two counties of this State for their role in the opiate crisis.
“A federal judge ordered [these three companies] to pay $ 650.6 million” in total, in the counties of Lake and Trumbull, in Ohio, announced in a statement the law firm who Defended the two counties, The Lanier Law Firm. This sum will allow you to “finance education and prevention programs and reimburse agencies and organizations for the costs incurred to manage the crisis,” he added.
Walmart announced in a press release its intention to appeal, denouncing a trial “truffled of legal and factual errors”. The three giants of distribution in the United States, which had massively distributed painkillers in these two counties, had been deemed guilty in November.
The lawyers of the two counties in Ohio had managed to convince the jury that the massive presence of opiates was a public nuisance and that the pharmacies had participated by ignoring for years alarm signals on prescriptions suspects.
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The counties of the counties “simply wanted to be compensated for the burden of an epidemic of drugs supported by the greed of the companies, the negligence and the lack of responsibility of these pharmaceutical chains”, commented their lawyer, Mark Lanier, quoted in the press release.
Pharmacie channels believe that pharmacists only comply with legal orders written by doctors, who prescribe substances approved by health authorities. Some parties had concluded agreements with the counties of Lake and Trumbull to end the prosecution in exchange for financial payments. This is the case with Rite Aid and Giant Eagle pharmacies channels.
It was the first time that drug distributors, not producers, had been judged responsible in this health crisis causing more than 500,000 dead by overdose in twenty years in the United States, and which gave rise to a myriad of procedures launched by communities.
The condemnation of opiate producers on the basis of public nuisance laws has however experienced setbacks, in California and Oklahoma. Last summer CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Walmart had agreed to pay $ 26 million in total to two New York State counties.