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Trial against pharmacy chains’ opioid sales begins in Cleveland

Jurors will determine whether four retail pharmacy chains created a public nuisance in how they dispensed addictive painkillers in Lake and Trumbull counties.

CLEVELAND — Opening arguments were made on Monday in Cleveland in the trial pitting two Northeast Ohio counties against four big-name retail pharmacy chains for their role in the opioid crisis.

Lake and Trumbull counties are suing CVS, Walgreeens, Walmart, and Giant Eagle. An attorney for the counties said the four pharmacy chains contributed to a deadly and expensive public nuisance in the two counties, where the opioid crisis continues to rage. 

“They’re going to say, ‘We’re not any part of the problem,’” attorney Mark Lanier said to jurors. “They’re going to blame everyone but themselves.”

The cost of abating the crisis is $1 billion each for each county, one of their attorneys has said. Around 80 million prescription painkillers were dispensed in Trumbull County between 2012 and 2016 — 400 for every county resident — while 61 million pills were dispensed in Lake County during that five-year period — 265 pills for every resident.

This is the first time pharmacy companies have gone to trial to defend themselves over the ongoing overdose epidemic. U.S. District Judge Dan Polster is presiding over the trial, which is expected to last six weeks.

Attorneys for the four pharmacy chains have argued the companies didn’t manufacture the drugs and that their pharmacies were filling prescriptions written by physicians for patients with a legitimate medical need.

“Pharmacists fill the prescriptions, they don’t tell doctors what to prescribe,” Casper Stoffelmayr, an attorney for Walgreens said in an opening statement.

The rise in physicians prescribing pain medications such as oxycodone and hydrocodone coincided with recognition by medical groups that patients have the right to be treated for pain, Stoffelmayr said.

The problem, he said, was that “pharmaceutical manufacturers tricked doctors into writing way too many pills.”

Attorneys for CVS, Walmart and Giant Eagle are expected to give opening statements on Tuesday morning with the counties putting on their first witness, a CVS employee, later in the day.

Rite-Aid settled with the Lake and Trumbull two counties in August. The company paid Trumbull County $1.5 million. The amount paid to Lake County has not been disclosed.

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