Jury holds pharmacies responsible for role in opioid crisis

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JOHN SEEWER

CLEVELAND (AP) — CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, a federal jury said Tuesday in a verdict that could set the tone for U.S. city and county governments that want to hold pharmacies accountable for their roles in the opioid crisis.

Lake and Trumbull counties blamed the three chain pharmacies for not stopping the flood of pills that caused hundreds of overdose deaths and cost each of the two counties about $1 billion, their attorney said.

How much the pharmacies must pay in damages will be decided in the spring by a federal judge.

It was the first time pharmacy companies had completed a trial to defend themselves in a drug crisis that has killed a half-million Americans over the past two decades.



A car enters Trumbull County, Wednesday, in this photo from Nov. 17, 2021, near Warren, Ohio. Three retail pharmacy chains recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, a federal jury said Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, in a verdict that could set the tone for U.S. city and county governments that want to hold pharmacies accountable for their roles in the opioid crisis. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-health-ohio-medication-opioids-d778b97c0eb409aa0d53dcfd9e4f2ad0

[milestogo]

1. So, everyone except the Sackler family.

i.e., the very rich do not need to be held accountable.

[zuul]

3. Same as it ever was.

[DURHAM D]

2. This seems bassakwards.

It is the doctors not the pharmacists who are to blame for so many scripts.

[nycbos]

5. The pharmacies made a s**t load of money of this.

Hundreds of thousands of pills to towns with only a couple of hundred residents.

So the pharmacists made a lot, the distributers made a lot. A lot of people got a taste


https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/legal_affairs/drug-firms-fueled-pill-mills-in-rural-wv/article_14c8e1a5-19b1-579d-9ed5-770f09589a22.html

[Mosby]

10. Agree, some of the state attys are suing distributors

Like McKesson. They have even less responsibility that the pharmacists.

And what started with oxy has spread to all opiates. Thats why J n J recently said they are going to stop all opiate production and sales.

It sort of reminds me of the housing collapse, everyone blamed the banks for loaning money to people they shouldn't have, and the brokerage houses with their CDOs and CDSs, but the folks that created the bubble were realtors and their compliant appraisers. They laughed all the way to the bank.

[lonely bird]

22. The financial collapse was far more complex than that

Minsky knew that financial innovation in search of higher returns created havoc.

[melm00se]

11. Imagine the response

if a pharmacy decided to NOT fill certain kinds of prescriptions...

I don't have to, I have seen it here numerous times...

[Slammer]

14. ridiculous

Yeah, this is massively stupid.

You bring your prescription to a pharmacy and they flat out refuse to fill it: THAT is what those pharmacies were supposed to do?

And what happens when their customers sue them for refusing them service? Would the government have stepped in and covered their legal costs plus the costs of losing that lawsuit?

No, because those companies would have deserved to lose.

I'm in constant pain due to a laundry list of things that I won't bore you with. I take two different medicines which classify as opiates.

Together, they take care of about 40% of the constant pain that I'm in. The rest I just have to grit my teeth and bear it. I could easily convince my pain specialist to up my dose on one of them since I've got 25+ years of medical records showing that I'm in constant pain but the medicine I'm taking doesn't come close to fully dealing with it.

But I don't because taking any more medicine than I do because taking more would impede my ability to function.

What I don't need is some pharmacy, which has no clue as to my medical history, cutting me off from my pain meds because they arbitrarily decide that I've had enough.

Pharmacies aren't pain specialists. Pharmacies don't know my medical history or have access to my x-rays. So they don't have the first clue as to what medicines I do or don't need.

Placing that burden on them is BEYOND ridiculous.

[slightlv]

15. I'm with you...

I've held on to the same doc for over 30+ years, cause she's been with me through all my surgeries for my condition and helped me pick a rheumatologist. I'm on one opioid and have been terrified for years they'd find some way to take that away. I can't function with nothing - the nerve pain is too intense. As it is, I try my best to make 2 weeks worth last for 30 days; some months it works; others it's really, really hard. Winters, in particular, are the worst. Color me scared of being bedridden for the rest of my life.

[RobinA]

16. Couldn't Believe

my eyes when I read about this today. Hideously stupid.

[iemanja]

17. Some pharmacies knew exactly what they were doing

as did the doctors and the Sacklers.

[Freddie]

4. Watch "The Pharmacist" on Netflix

True story of a pharmacist in Louisiana who flagged all the OxyContin prescriptions coming from one doctor, and helped stop the pill mills, after he lost his son in a drug-related murder. Eye-opening. It was a mom & pop pharmacy and the owner wanted this particular pharmacist to just fill the prescriptions and take the $$. No doubt CVS and Walgreens had the same attitude.

[Ligyron]

6. How the hell do you OD from a pill of a known mg?

I mean, With a bag of heroin it’s a crapshoot with one bag from the same source Conceivably being much different/stronger than another, especially with fentanyl being involved.

But unless you’re a first time user, with pills you should be familiar with what it take to produce the desired effect.

Then again, maybe they DO know and just decide to end it all, IDK.

What I do know is that the present drug policy is a failure.

Now the DEA has gone completely overboard, denying pain medication to those in need and yet ironically … and perhaps even as a result of this stupidity, we still have rampant use of unreliable street drugs and overdoses anyway.

Here’s a radical thought: perhaps in the land of the free we should leave such matters up to the individual.

[Mz Pip]

7. People don't follow the directions

They take more than they should, build up a resistance to it, take more and more, then they start mixing it with alcohol and/or tranquilizers.

[Ligyron]

9. It seems to me most " opioid" od deaths also have other substances involved.

The other substances are rarely mentioned and only in passing.

It’s “The Opiod Crises” which makes the headlines after all.

[slightlv]

19. Resistance

is built up, whether or not you "take more and more" or start mixing it. Those of us who take it for legitimate reasons are scared of building up a resistance because we know we're not going to get anything else. For many of us, there is nothing else out there that will help. For others, anything else beyond what we're taking won't allow us to function at the level we need to function. It's a fine line we have to walk. We're not drug addicts. We don't party with this crap. I never understood WHY anyone would want this crap to party with, anyway. Go over the recommended amount you get sleepy enough to need to take a nap. Boy, that really makes you the life of the party... not! We're already self-restricted on what we can do to earn a living. Every time they come down hard on those of us who are hanging on with our fingernails, they push us closer to early retirement or trying for disability insurance. Ever try for disability insurance? You generally get turned down on the first try. You need to hire a lawyer to appeal and get it approved. Even moreso if, like me, you've got one of those "invisible disabilities." (don't get me started on it!) Leave it to say, you've got to have money to ensure you can you'll have money coming in when you're pushed out of the work place because your pain won't let you stay and you can't get a "reasonable accommodation." I really resent the non-disabled assuming that all of us who use opioids for any reason are drug addled addicts jonesing for our next fix, and this includes clueless lawmakers who leave us behind, too. Oh, to live in a state that had medical (or even better, recreational!) pot. But alas, THIS state will be the very last state to enact that law. We have too many hypocritical Xtianists around here.

[TexasBushwhacker]

20. Exactly

People build up a tolerance. Now, just like with heroine, I think that sometimes addicts have cut back on their use enough that they lose some of their tolerance. Then when they finally get some more pills and they take the number they had been taking before and they overdose.

[Basic LA]

8. Needed saying!

Good on you. I've been wanting to put the same thought into words.

[Freddie]

21. OxyContin is time-released

Abusers crush them and snort or inject it, bypassing the time-release coating.

[Coventina]

12. I am not in favor of this. Too many pharmacists feel entitled to interfere with treatment

Can you imagine throwing this liability at them as well?

It's hard enough as it is to get adequate pain treatment in the country.

Adding pharmacists in the the jury as well is not helpful, IMHO.

[NullTuples]

13. I agree; this is where "conscience" laws get traction

A pharmacist's job is to question a prescription if say, the dose seems wrong or there's a known interaction. But beyond that their responsibility is to accurately fill a prescription.

The last thing I want - but the first thing Republicans want - is for pharmacists to be able to say, "I don't think I should fill this for you because of some social judgement I'm making of you".

Over prescribing is on the doctor's shoulders. But let's be clear; they also have a responsibility not to react to this and simply say, "I'm not going to prescribe opiods if I can avoid it". There are people with chronic pain who suffer badly when doctors take the easy and lazy and selfish way out.

They need to do their job, as difficult and complex as that may be.

[Marthe48]

18. It took me almost 2 weeks to get a different brand

I've been taking generic Ambien, Zolpidem Tartrate 5 mg, since about 1996. I have restless leg syndrome, was using it just to get to sleep. I got a refill 11/9 and started using it 11/11. I didn't open the bottle till I needed to start the refill and saw it was a different pill, still Zolpidem Tartrate 5 mg, made bu a different company. I realized the first dose it wasn't working. I waited till Mon. 11/ 15 to try to get the prescription refilled with the generic brand I have been taking for years. It is a controlled substance (read $$$$$$$) and it was like pulling teeth to get back to the medicine that worked. I just made a special trip into town to get a new refill that the ins. had to approve and the doctor didn't want to give me. I had to go to a different pharmacy because my regular pharmacy has the other brand and won't special order what they had been getting filling my prescription. The replacement refill is only 30 days, but I'll jump through hoops again next month. I am so tired, I can hardly see straight. But this headline certainly caught my eye.

There are so many stoppers in place, at least for me, that I don't understand how so many people got a prescription filled without running into the same stoppers.