CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced during a press conference that his office was filing two new opioid lawsuits against major pharmacy corporations and he would be releasing findings of a years-long investigation into the failure of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
"This is a very critical issue," Morrisey said during the press conference. "This is a top priority for my office."
Morrisey said his office has always tried to target the problem from all fronts — supply, demand and the education perspective.
"We've also tried to look at the root causes of the issues," Morrisey said. "We've tried to find permanent solutions to help our people. We have to fix this problem. Our people are dying, families are being shattered and the foster care system has been wrecked. So much of this could be laid at the feet of the opioid epidemic."
Morrisey said the lawsuits, filed June 3 in Putnam Circuit Court, are against Rite-Aid and Walgreens.
“Prescription opioid pill mills and rogue prescribers cannot channel opioids for illicit use without at least the tacit support and willful blindness of distributors, if not their knowing support,” Morrisey said. “Those who unconscionably help create our state’s opioid epidemic should be held accountable, pay for their role in the crisis and act to remediate the problem. West Virginia deserves nothing less.”
Morrisey said the pharmacy companies were on notice of the opioid issue and failed to monitor and halt the suspicious orders to their pharmacies.
The lawsuits state that Walgreens distributed about 29.6 million pills and its pharmacies distributed another 17.6 million, while Rite-Aid distributed more than 87 million oxycodone pills in its retail pharmacies and ordered another 127.5 million from other distributors.
Regarding the DEA, Morrisey said the agency failed to limit the excess manufacturing of dangerous, prescription painkillers.
"This is a new phase in litigation from our office," Morrisey said. "Today we are releasing a 52-page report about the DEA's utter failure. This is an issue we’ve been focusing on for a while."
Morrisey said it all started in 2015 when his office filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the DEA to ask questions about how the national drug quota system was being run.
“The excess supply of opioid painkillers allowed drugmakers to flood our state and nation with pills," Morrisey said. "Apart from minimizing data from the Food and Drug Administration, our investigation revealed DEA made no significant attempt to consult with other agencies, states or private organizations to better substantiate its annual quotas as opioid deaths skyrocketed nationwide."
Morrisey said there was still much more work has to be done.
"We need to make sure the mistakes of the past will not be repeated," Morrisey said. "We need to make sure the government is not part of the problem — that they’re not causing this senseless death."
Morrisey said his office discovered that three-fourths of heroin users started out with prescription opioids and that 70% of those who recently abused opioids obtained their drugs through diversion and not through prescriptions.
"That’s pretty unbelievable," Morrisey said. "Those are significant findings. We want West Virginians today to have this information and let everyone know we are working hard on this."