The Justice Department on Friday accused Walgreens of fueling the opioid epidemic that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people by filling millions of unlawful prescriptions across the country.
Attorneys filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that alleges that since August 2012, pharmacists working for Walgreens filled millions of prescriptions for controlled substances that either lacked a legitimate medical purpose or were not valid, the Justice Department said.
"This lawsuit seeks to hold Walgreens accountable for the many years that it failed to meet its obligations when dispensing dangerous opioids and other drugs," Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department's Civil Division, said in a statement.
Attorneys for the justice department allege that in filling these lawful prescriptions, Walgreens' pharmacists had violated the Controlled Substances Act as well as the False Claims Act when they sought reimbursement for many of these prescriptions from various federal health care programs.
Walgreens, which is one of the country's largest drugstore chains with more than 8,000 pharmacies nationwide, is owned by the Walgreens Boots Alliance, whose representatives said in a statement that they are asking the court "to clarify the responsibilities of pharmacies and pharmacists and to protect against the government's attempt to enforce arbitrary 'rules' that do not appear in any law or regulation and never went through any official rulemaking process."
"We will not stand by and allow the government to put our pharmacists in a no-win situation, trying to comply with 'rules' that simply do not exist," the Walgreen Boots Alliance said in a statement.
"Walgreens stands behind our pharmacists, dedicated healthcare professionals who live in the communities they serve, filling legitimate prescriptions for FDA-approved medications written by DEA-licensed prescribers in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations."
The opioid epidemic has destroyed communities across the country, ending in the overdose deaths of at least half a million people nationwide. In December, the Justice Department filed a similar lawsuit accusing CVS Pharmacy of incentivizing pharmacists to fill illegal opioid prescriptions for more than a decade.
The lawsuit against Walgreens comes after four former employees filed whistleblower actions against the company, the Justice Department said.
According to the Justice Department, Walgreens ignored evidence that its stores were filling unlawful prescriptions, and in fact systematically pressured its pharmacists to fill prescriptions quickly. Walgreens also prevented pharmacists from warning each other about certain prescribers, the Justice Department said.
"Walgreens and its pharmacists have an obligation to ensure that every prescription they fill is legitimate and issued responsibly. As this lawsuit alleges, Walgreens failed in this obligation, and many times ignored the red flags that warned of suspicious prescribing practices," DEA Principal Deputy Administrator George Papadopoulos said in a statement.