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CHARLESTON – As the federal trial against three major opioid distributors continued, data showing pharmacies in Huntington and Cabell County were ordering well above the national average of controlled substances, some ordering more than five times the national average.  Cabell County and the City of Huntington sued the three largest pharmaceutical distribution companies –  AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corp. – in 2017 claiming the companies were largely responsible for the opioid crisis after the companies shipped more than 81 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills ...

At the height of the opioid crisis, millions upon millions of prescription pain pills flooded into Cabell County in West Virginia. The highly addictive and routinely overprescribed drugs were readily available from pharmacies for years, even as overdoses soared. Their delivery was a reliable, efficient and mechanical process, one that stood in stark contrast to the devastation they caused. This community of some 90,000 on the south bank of the...

CHARLESTON – The program director for Huntington's Quick Response Team and Cabell EMS employee testified during the first federal trial against the “Big Three” opioid distributors over their role in the drug crisis that Cabell County does have data tying prescription drug use to illegal drug use, and to an "overwhelming" impact of the drug crisis on the community and first responders. Meanwhile, the drug distributors – McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health – sought to put the focus on the role of prescribers, as well as health officials' decision not to go after distributo...

CHARLESTON – During the third day of a federal trial against three major opioid distributors, lawyers for the City of Huntington and Cabell County sought to make the case that the ongoing drug crisis was predictable, as well as tied to the use of prescription painkillers. On May 5, attorneys called David Courtwright, a historian of opioid use and drug policy, as well as Dr. Rahul Gupta, who was West Virginia’s health officer and commissioner of the state’s Bureau for Public Health from 2015-2018, to testify in the bench trial at the Charleston federal courthouse. Gupta testified, at one...

CHARLESTON – A historian of opioid use and drug policy testified, in a federal trial against three major opioid distributors Wednesday, about three principal opioid epidemics that preceded the ongoing crisis. The City of Huntington and Cabell County sued the “Big Three” drug distributors – McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health – in 2017 over their role in the overdose crisis,  after more than 80 million doses of the drugs were sent to the area in an eight-year period. Wednesday is the third day in the bench trial at the Charleston federal courthouse. Farrell ...