December 23, 2020
Federal government sues Walmart for opioid crisis role
Photo | Grant Welker
The Walmart Supercenter at Tobias Boland Way in Worcester
By Grant Welker
The federal Department of Justice has sued Walmart for what it says is wrongly dispensing controlled substances during the worst of the prescription opioid crisis.
The government's lawsuit, which was announced Wednesday, puts one of the world's largest retailers on the stand for its alleged role in an epidemic that included nearly 47,000 opioid-related deaths nationally in 2018. Federal data has shown that a flood of prescription opioids, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, distributed through pharmacies throughout the country beginning roughly 15 years ago was a major contributor to the overdose crisis.
In Worcester County, Walmart pharmacies were generally not the largest source of prescription opioid pills in the early years of the crisis, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data analyzed by the Worcester Business Journal. Of pharmacies that had the most opioid pills prescribed in the county between 2006 and 2012, none were Walmarts. The Sturbridge Walmart, which ranked 70th, was the highest for the Arkansas-based chain locally. Most at the top of the list were CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.
The WBJ reported last year that more than 49 million opioid painkillers were distributed to Worcester pharmacies in a seven-year period ending in 2012, enough for 38 pills each year for every resident of the city. Opioid-related fatalities in the city hit 97 in 2018, up from 80 the prior year and 24 in 2012. There were 78 such deaths in 2019.
The Department of Justice said Wednesday that Walmart, as one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors, had a responsibility to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids.
“Instead, for years, it did the opposite — filling thousands of invalid prescriptions at its pharmacies and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids and other drugs placed by those pharmacies," Jeffrey Bossert Clark, the acting assistant attorney general of the department's civil division, said in a statement. "This unlawful conduct contributed to the epidemic of opioid abuse throughout the United States."
Walmart denied any role in the epidemic, saying in a statement it has always empowered pharmacists to refuse to fill problematic opioid prescriptions, and they refused to fill hundreds of thousands of such prescriptions.
"Walmart sent DEA tens of thousands of investigative leads, and we blocked thousands of questionable doctors from having their opioid prescriptions filled at our pharmacies," the company said.
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