Florida sues Walgreens, CVS for opioids

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida – Florida is suing the country's two largest drugstore chains, Walgreens and CVS, alleging it has worsened the opioid crisis at the national and US levels by over-selling painkillers and taking no precautions to stop illegal sales.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced last Friday that she had added the companies to a lawsuit filed in court by the state last spring against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and several drug distributors. # 39; opioids.

Bondi said in a press release that CVS and Walgreens "played a role in creating the opioid crisis". She said the companies had failed to stop "suspicious orders of opioids" and "dispensed unreasonable amounts of opioids to their pharmacies". According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 45 people die each day in the United States because of an opioid overdose.

"We will continue to look for companies that have played a role in creating the opioid crisis," Bondi said, quoted by President Trump as a possible replacement for US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, recently ousted. "Thousands of Floridians have suffered the actions of the accused."

CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis called the suit "unfounded" in a statement on Saturday. He said the company trains its pharmacists and their assistants about their responsibilities when distributing controlled substances and gives them tools to detect potentially illegal sales.

"In recent years, CVS has taken many steps to strengthen existing protective measures to combat the opioid epidemic in the country," said DeAngelis.

Walgreens said Saturday that he was not commenting on the pending lawsuits.

Until a police crackdown at the beginning of the decade, Florida was known for its so-called pain mills, where unscrupulous doctors were writing opioid prescriptions that would then be filled by fake patients in drug stores. Florida.

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