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Kentucky Attorney General Files Sixth Opioid Lawsuit
By: Associated Press
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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general has filed a sixth lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company for deceptive marketing of opioid-based painkillers.
Andy Beshear announced on Thursday that he has filed a lawsuit against Walgreens in Boone Circuit Court. Beshear says Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens excessively distributed and dispensed opioids in Kentucky and failed to legally report the suspiciously large orders it received for prescription opioids.
Walgreens declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
Beshear has also sued Johnson & Johnson, Endo Pharmaceuticals, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corporation. Together, Beshear said those companies supplied 85 percent of opioid-based prescription painkillers in Kentucky.
From 2006 to 2015, Beshear said Kentucky had more opioid prescriptions than people and the state had the sixth-highest number of opioid-related deaths in the country.