Louisville Metro government is suing the country’s three largest opioid distribution companies: Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson.
Mayor Greg Fischer and Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell announced the federal lawsuit Monday morning.
City files federal lawsuit against nation’s major opioid companies; seeks damages for this health crisis impacting Louisville
— Mayor Greg Fischer (@louisvillemayor) August 21, 2017
In a press release, the city said more than 197 million doses of prescription opioids were dispensed in the county from 2012 through the middle of 2017. That, the officials said, was enough for 258 doses for every person in the city.
Last year, 364 people died from overdoses in Louisville, though that includes people who overdosed on non-prescription opiates, like heroin.
“There is no question our taxpayers — all 760,000 Louisville citizens — are shouldering the financial responsibility for the opioid crisis,” Fischer said.
Louisville isn’t alone in targeting the companies distributing the pills.
Within the past year, at least 25 states, cities and counties have filed civil cases against manufacturers, distributors and large drugstore chains that make up the $13 billion-a-year opioid industry. In the past few weeks alone, the attorneys general for Ohio and Missouri, along with the district attorneys for three counties in Tennessee, filed suits against the industry — and the attorney general for Oklahoma filed suit on Friday. The strategy echoes the effort against major tobacco companies in the 1990s and is born of similar frustration over rising death rates and the increasing costs of addressing the continuing public health crisis. After years of government and pharmaceutical firms failing to control the problem, some lawyers say the suits have the potential to force the industry to curb practices that contribute to it.
President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a national emergency last week, though details about what exactly that means haven’t been released yet.