Drug Distributor McKesson Settles WV Opioid Lawsuit

McKesson, a drug distribution giant, has decided to settle a lawsuit in West Virginia with a 37 million dollar settlement. The company paid $14.5 million upon settling and will pay another $4.5 million a year for the next five years.

About the Lawsuit

The original lawsuit accused the drug distributor of turning a willfully blind eye to suspicious behavior. Many opioid distributors have been charged with ignoring abnormally large orders, such as massive amounts of pills sent to different pharmacies across the state repeatedly.

When irregularities were noted, the company did nothing to investigate.

As part of the settlement, McKesson did not have to admit any wrongdoings.

McKesson’s Ongoing Trouble

This lawsuit is not the company’s first lawsuit for its practices regarding opioids. In 2017, the McKesson paid $150 million in penalties. They were forced to suspend sales of opioids …

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Frustration over Vicodin-Hydrocodone Classification

Hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin and other prescription medicines, is the second-most abused prescription drug in the nation (oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin and Percocet, is number one).  It has been linked to thousands of overdoses, including those of celebrities Heath Ledger and Brittany Murphy, and has been the cause of a flood of pharmacy robberies across the nation.  As states crackdown on oxycodone sales, people who are addicted to painkillers are turning to hydrocodone.  Earlier this summer a man gunned down four people in a New York pharmacy and walked out with 11,000 hydrocodone pills.

Despite the obvious addiction and overdose  danger associated with hydrocodone, Vicodin is also very damaging to the liver.  Still, federal regulators have been unable to decide that it’s time to tighten access to this drug. Since 1999, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration …

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