West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is taking steps that he says could target the root cause of the opioid epidemic.
The West Virginia Attorney General says we need to make sure opioids are available but only to people who actually need them for medical reasons.
All of this is part of a broader effort to hold the whole pharcmaceutical supply channel accountable. This is if there have been actions in the past that violated the law.
Walmart and CVS are facing a lawsuit. That lawsuit says the two companies supplied far more opioids to their pharmacies than was needed to meet demand. Morrisey says both of them knew they had an obligation to halt suspicious orders, but failed to monitor and report such activity.
“We’ve been focusing on ways to clean up our streets and make sure we don’t lose another generation to senseless deaths, so I’m going to go where the evidence lies.”
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey
Morrisey says there was great progress before COVID-19. He’s talking about the number of elicit prescriptions that he says have come way down.
Morrisey says his office has also taken legal action against wholesalers, manufacturers, and even the federal government.
