The state of Tennessee sued Walgreens on Wednesday, accusing the retail pharmacy giant of fueling the state’s opioid epidemic by willfully flooding the market with an oversupply of prescription narcotics in violation of consumer protection and public nuisance laws.
According to the lawsuit, Walgreens used its position as one of the state’s largest pharmacy chains to dispense over 1.1 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills within Tennessee from 2006–2020, roughly equivalent to 175 tablets for every resident of the state.
“The sheer volume of opioids that Walgreens released into Tennessee was unreasonable and highly suspicious on its face,” said the 148-page lawsuit, filed in Knox County Circuit Court. “Walgreens utterly saturated the state of Tennessee with narcotics.”…