The state of Michigan has filed a lawsuit against McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corporation and Walgreens, charging them with creating the opioid crisis by flooding the market with pills and selling them without oversight that could have prevented their misuse.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the suit, filed in Wayne County Circuit Court under the Drug Dealer Liability Act, is the first by a state to sue drug companies as drug dealers. Municipalities have already taken such actions, but Michigan is the first state to do so.

If successful, under the act the suit could result in civil damages against people who participate in the illegal marketing of controlled substances. It could also provide an end-run around an existing state law that makes it tough to bring suit against drug companies for drugs that have already won FDA approval.

According to Linda Davis, a retired Clinton Township district court judge who oversaw its drug court and now serves as executive director of Families Against Narcotics, "Pharmaceutical companies knew that these drugs were addictive. They miseducated and misadvertised to doctors. They truly went beyond just prescribing FDA-approved drugs. They misinformed the public."

The suit seeks a host of damages, including for the increased costs of law enforcement and prosecution associated with the epidemic as well as for health care costs, costs associated with early childhood education and special education for children born addicted to the drugs, drug treatment costs and other losses created by illegal drug use.

The high costs associated with dealing with the opioid epidemic are severely damaging community coffers within the state, according to Monique Stanton, president of social services agency CARE of Southeastern Michigan. "We are spending huge amounts of resources, whether it's in the schools .. law enforcement. … Our local communities are significantly burdened with creating new strategies to address the epidemic."

The attorney general's office cited the Washington Post as the source of data indicating that almost 3 billion opioid pills entered Michigan between 2006 and 2012. Overdoses claim about 5.5 lives daily in the state, with 2,036 in 2018 alone.

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Michigan lawsuit accuses Walgreens, other drug companies of being drug dealers

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