The first jury verdict in an opioid case has found that the nation’s three largest pharmacy chains had substantially contributed to the opioid epidemic and crisis of overdoses, a big win for plaintiffs in thousands of similar lawsuits against the drug industry. The verdict, in a federal court in Cleveland, was surprising as it was based on the legal strategy of “public nuisance” laws, a concept that was rejected twice this month in judicial rulings in California and Oklahoma in similar cases against opioid manufacturers. Still, the jury agreed that the pharmacy chains—CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens—had turned a blind eye to countless red flags about suspicious opioid orders, thereby fueling an epidemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.
For their part, the pharmacies argued that they were fulfilling legal prescriptions by doctors for a drug approved by the FDA and regulated by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Whether the verdict survives on appeal isn’t certain. Other cases involving the pharmacies ended with a $26 million settlement in New York this past summer, while opioid makers and distributors—also facing thousands of lawsuits for allegedly fueling the epidemic—have committed billions of dollars in settlement offers, some nationwide.
The lawsuits are playing out in courtrooms and behind the scenes as the opioid epidemic and a surge in fatal overdoses rages on. A record 100,000 individuals died in the year-long period ending in April—a 30 percent increase of the same time period the year before, driven largely by the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, now a popular street drug sold on the black market. Compensation from settlements would be channeled in part to victims’ families and also to drug treatment and prevention programs, but we also need a massive infusion of funding from the federal government to tackle a public health crisis of such magnitude.