Nate Raymond

(Reuters] – Monday will see the start of the first trial for four big pharmacy chains regarding the deadly U.S. Opioid epidemic. The trials are being held in two Ohio counties. They seek to show jurors that these companies were behind the floodgates of addictive painkillers flooding their towns.

Lake and Trumbull in Ohio allege that excessive levels of opioids have flooded their towns due to oversight errors at Walgreens Boots Alliance, CVS Health Corp (NYSE :), Walmart (NYSE 🙂 Inc) and Giant Eagle Inc.

Opening statements will be made by the lawyers for both counties and corporations to the federal jury in Cleveland. There are thousands of similar cases against pharmacies, distributors, and pharmaceutical companies.

The state and local governments have brought more than 3300 cases against the opioid addiction epidemic, which U.S. data has shown led to almost 500,000 deaths due to overdoses between 1999 and 2019.

They deny any wrongdoing. CVS claimed that pharmacies in its network “fill valid prescriptions written legally by licensed doctors.”

Walgreens stated that it takes pride in its pharmacists’ judgment, while Giant Eagle claimed that pharmacy inspectors found it to be compliant with the law. Walmart didn’t respond to our requests for comment.

If a jury finds the companies liable for the community’s health crisis, Dan Polster, U.S. district judge, will decide how much the company must pay. He requested that the parties settle.

This trial is against the largest U.S. pharmacy distributors, McKesson Corp (NYSE) Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE:) and AmerisourceBergen (NYSE:) Corp – and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:) in July proposed paying up to $26 billion to settle cases against them.

Aug. 28th, a bankruptcy judge approved a settlement agreement between OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP & its wealthy Sackler family owner owners. The company’s value is more than $10 Billion.