The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office is suing Kroger for its alleged role in furthering opioid addiction in the commonwealth.
Attorney General Russell Coleman announced on Monday that his office filed a lawsuit against the Kroger Company “for its role in the devastating drug crisis in Kentucky.”
“Between 2006-2019, Kroger and its more than 100 pharmacies … were responsible for over 11 percent of all opioid pills dispensed in Kentucky, totaling hundreds of millions of doses flooding into communities without any reasonable safeguards,” the attorney general’s office said.
The lawsuit, filed in Bullitt Circuit Court, alleges Kroger:
- Bought over four billion morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) of opioids for Kentucky between 2006-2019. That’s roughly equivalent to 444 million opioid doses
- Distributed almost 194 million hydrocodone pills to its Kentucky pharmacies between 2006-2019
- Failed to implement any effective monitoring program to stop suspicious opioid orders.
“For more than a decade, Kroger flooded Kentucky with an almost unthinkable number of opioid pills that directly led to addiction, pain and death,” Coleman said. “Kroger, which families have trusted for so long, knowingly made these dangerous and highly addictive substances all too accessible. Worst of all, Kroger never created a formal system, a training or even a set of guidelines to report suspicious activity or abuse. The scourge of addiction that has plowed through graduating classes, work forces and entire families is the devastating result.”
Acting as a distributor and dispenser, Kroger, the attorney general’s office said, had access to ample real-time data revealing unusual prescribing patterns and the ability to track suspicious orders.
“Despite clear red flags, Kroger did not report a single suspicious prescription in the commonwealth between 2007-2014,” officials stated.
Read the entire complaint here.
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
