W.Va.: Firms Shipped 20.8M Pills to Town of 2,900
During an investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee into the opioid crisis, the panel discovered that out-of-state drug companies had shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies in a West Virginia town of only 2,900 people. In 2015, over 40 percent of oxycodone prescriptions filled by one pharmacy came from a single Virginia doctor at a pain clinic.
From the Charleston Gazette-Mail:
In February 2016, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey ended a state lawsuit against Miami-Luken after the company agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle allegations that it flooded the state with painkillers. Morrisey, a former lobbyist for a trade group that represents Miami-Luken and other drug distributors, inherited the lawsuit in 2013 after ousting longtime Attorney General Darrell McGraw.
H.D. Smith paid the state $3.5 million to settle the same pill-dumping allegations in January 2017.
