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DOJ Charges Walmart With Illegally Dispensing and Distributing Opioids
The Department of Justice is seeking a financial penalty for actions that helped fuel the nation s opioid crisis.
Jeffrey Greenberg / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
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More than two years after the federal government was preparing to indict Walmart on charges of illegally dispensing opioids, the U.S. Department of Justice is finally taking action. But it’s seeking a financial penalty, not the criminal sanction prosecutors had pushed for.
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice brought a civil suit against Walmart in U.S. District Court in Delaware, accusing the retailing behemoth of illegally dispensing and distributing opioids, helping to fuel a health crisis that has led to the deaths of around half a million Americans since 1999.
Walmart took the highly unusual step of preemptively suing the Justice Department. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
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More than two years after the federal government was preparing to indict Walmart on charges of illegally dispensing opioids, the U.S. Department of Justice is finally taking action. But it’s seeking a financial penalty, not the criminal sanction prosecutors had pushed for.
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice brought a civil suit against Walmart in U.S. District Court in Delaware, accusing the retailing behemoth of illegally dispensing and distributing opioids, helping to fuel a health crisis that has led to the deaths of around half a million Americans since 1999.
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The Trump Administration sued Walmart on Tuesday for producing what it alleges is an illegal flow of pain killers that has fueled America’s opioid crisis.
Ignoring “red flag” warnings against suspicious prescriptions from its own pharmacists, Walmart turned a network of 5,000 national in-store pharmacies into a pipeline of highly addictive painkillers, the Justice Department’s alleges in its lawsuit.
Walmart understaffed those pharmacies while pressuring workers to fill prescriptions quickly – enabling widespread drug abuse in order to increase profits, the suit filed in US District Court for the District of Delaware contends.
In doing so, it says, Walmart violated the federal Controlled Substances Act in several ways.
In its suit, Walmart accuses the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration of attempting to scapegoat the company for what it says are the federal government’s own regulatory and enforcement shortcomings.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit alleges Walmart created a system that turned its network of 5,000 in-store U.S. pharmacies into a leading supplier of highly addictive painkillers. The allegations date to June 2013, according to the suit.
Walmart started with cut-rate prices on opioids that initially drove shoppers to its stores, the government alleges. Middle managers under direction from executives at company headquarters pressured their pharmacists to work faster, the suit says, believing that quick-fill prescriptions drew customers to stay and keep shopping.