Drug firms want WV Supreme Court to halt ‘pill mill’ suit
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20151026/GZ01/151029610
Legally licensed prescribers write prescriptions…. pharmacies fill these legal prescription… Pharmacies orders replacement stock from legally licensed wholesalers.. AG is suing wholesalers because they sold properly ordered controlled meds where ordered by legally licensed … and the AG is suing the wholesalers ?????
Eleven of the nation’s largest prescription drug distributors are asking the West Virginia Supreme Court to stop a state lawsuit that alleges the companies turned a blind eye to suspicious orders from “pill mill” pharmacies.
The drug wholesalers say Boone County Circuit Judge William Thompson “committed clear error” by refusing the companies’ repeated requests to dismiss the case.
The drug firms also assert the state Board of Pharmacy has the power to sanction prescription drug wholesalers, but not the Attorney General’s Office, Department of Health and Human Resources, and Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety — the three West Virginia agencies suing the companies. The pharmacy board isn’t taking part in the lawsuit.
The out-of-state drug wholesalers filed a “writ of prohibition” late Friday, arguing they can’t be held liable for West Virginia’s prescription drug epidemic.
“No one denies the devastating effect such abuse has had on our state,” wrote A.L. “Al” Emch, lead lawyer for the drug firms, in Friday’s filing. “At the same time, this lawsuit represents a blatant end-run around state law and the constitutional and jurisdiction limitations on executive officials, most notably the attorney general.”
The lawsuit — initially filed by former Attorney General Darrell McGraw in 2012 — alleges the 11 drug wholesalers helped to fuel West Virginia’s prescription drug problem by shipping an excessive number of pain pills to pharmacies across the state. The companies should have flagged the suspicious orders, according to the lawsuit.
President Barack Obama spotlighted West Virginia’s opioid abuse problem during a visit to Charleston’s East End last week. West Virginia has the highest prescription drug death rate in the nation.
In a revised complaint filed earlier this year, the state’s lawyers disclosed that the 11 drug wholesalers shipped nearly 60 million oxycodone pills and 140.6 million hydrocodone pills — both are powerful and addictive painkillers — to West Virginia between 2007 and 2012.
In their Supreme Court filing last week, the drug firms note that the state pharmacy board has never taken disciplinary action against them. The board recently renewed the companies’ permits to distribute prescription drugs in West Virginia.
The companies said they have sophisticated systems to monitor drugs they purchase from pharmaceutical manufacturers and ship to pharmacies. But they don’t track drugs any further.
“[Drug wholesalers] are isolated from the segment of the chain — transactions between pharmacies and physicians — from which diversion occurs,” Emch wrote to the Supreme Court.
The companies argue that the state has no right to force them to pay costs — law enforcement, jail, drug treatment and other expenses — caused by the prescription drug problem.
“West Virginia prohibits government entities from recovering amounts expended for public charges,” Emch wrote.
In the filing, the drug wholesalers also say the state can’t sue them for breaking pharmacy board rules under the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act. The drug shipments weren’t a “consumer transaction” — as required to prove a violation of the state’s consumer protection laws.
If the Supreme Court rejects the drug firms’ request to halt the lawsuit, the trial is scheduled to start in October 2016. Lawyers for the two sides also will try to settle the case through mediation in April.
Officials with DHHR, Military Affairs and the Attorney General’s Office have repeatedly declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The companies named in the lawsuit are: AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., Miami-Luken Inc., J.M. Smith Corp., the Harvard Drug Group, Anda Inc., Associated Pharmacies, H.D. Smith Wholesale Drug, Keysource Medical, Masters Pharmaceutical, Quest Pharmaceuticals and Top Rx.
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.
Filed under: General Problems
here is a theory my daughter told me the other day…who has a bachelor degree in health care Adm,,, just what if the suits ie. big brother are trying to intently kill-off the POOR and uneducated citizens of this great country … to
clean-up the welfare role …….
What ever happened to the rule of law in this country? It seems that the only time the politicos invoke this principle is when they’re actually trying to do an end run around the principle for their own political agendas. The state officials in WV involved in this suit don’t even have the temerity to invoke the principle to cover their own unlawful actions. I guess they got lazy or don’t care about trotting out the big lie anymore. Speaking of lazy, can’t they even get their own law enforcement apparatchik to actually enforce existing laws and go after the bad actors? Instead the create law de novo by filing this suit. De facto creation of law by the executive branch is so far outside of their purview that even if they win, the decision will get tossed in appeal and how many millions of dollars will the tax payers in WV be out? It’s money I’ll spent as its general knowledge that WV isn’t flush with cash…unless that is the true motive here…to extort money from a legal business by claiming that such business broke the law. If that’s really the case, then why a civil trial? Why not pursue this on existing criminal statutes and take the booty in fines? They don’t because they know that they can’t prevail. It appears that the AG’s office of WV is populated by former accident injury attorneys, aka ambulance chasers.
Great. Just more happy news of another cog in the wheel to prevent access to necessary legitimate prescriptions to the sick and suffering. It’s almost identical to what Hitler did back in the 1930s and early 40s except we are much more subtle as we thin the herd of unproductive and undesirable citizens.