( CINCINNATI, OH ) -- The city of Cincinnati is filing a public nuisance lawsuit against the country's three largest wholesale drug distributors, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson Corporation. The city says this is due to the companies "dumping millions of dollars' worth of prescription opiates into our community."
Those three companies, which control more than 80% of the market for prescription opioids, have a combined $400 billion in annual revenues and profits in the billions of dollars.
Mayor John Cranley delivered a statement, saying "it is the distributors who failed in their legal obligation to notify the Drug Enforcement Administration of suspicious orders, even as the number of pills flowing into our city rose and rose." Mayor Cranley says it is cheaper in the long-run for the companies to admit they broke the law and pay fines rather than actually reporting suspicious orders.
Mayor Cranley also blamed what he called "bipartisan corruption" in Washington, DC for making it illegal for the DEA to pull the licenses of these drug companies for breaking the law and not reporting suspicious orders.
Video of the Announcement: