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The US government is suing the largest US retailer for its role in the opioid crisis. As announced by the US Department of Justice, Walmart is accused of illegally selling addictive pain relievers and thus contributed to the devastating opioid epidemic in the US. The company is threatened with fines running into the thousands. of millions.
As one of the largest pharmacy chains and pharmaceutical wholesalers, Walmart would have had the responsibility and the means to combat the spread of such drugs, the ministry argued. However, the company did the opposite: over the years, it had issued thousands of drugs despite invalid prescriptions and failed to report suspicious orders to authorities.
Walmart had already taken legal action against the US government in late October to clarify whether drug traffickers could be held responsible. In this way, the company anticipated the government’s demand. The Justice Department is threatening Walmart with a “completely unwarranted” legal battle, the company said in October.
Employees would only have fulfilled their duties
The company argued that the employees were only doing their duty and offering prescription drugs to customers by doctors authorized by the US authorities. “We are initiating this legal battle because there is no federal law that obliges pharmacists to interfere in the relationship between doctors and patients to the extent required by the Ministry of Justice,” he said.
Opioids are partially synthetically produced drugs with, among other things, analgesic properties. However, they also carry a huge risk of dependency and a high potential for abuse. According to figures from the CDC, the opioid crisis in the US has caused more than 450,000 deaths since the turn of the millennium.
Walmart is not one of the drug companies that is often blamed for misery. As a large drug dealer with many pharmacy counters, the group is also under fire. In recent years, federal authorities have increasingly acted against pharmaceutical companies believed to be complicit in the opioid crisis. In addition to Walmart, investigators had already targeted companies such as Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson.
