Dickenson County this week filed a $30 million lawsuit against the makers of painkillers and the companies that distribute them and oversee prescription benefit plans.
The lawsuit filed in the county’s circuit court mirrors actions by local governments across the nation. A similar lawsuit seeking $100 million was also filed Wednesday by the city of Alexandria, according to The Washington Post.
The Dickenson suit claims that pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and benefits managers “profit enormously from the movement of opioid products,” while the county has had to “allocate substantial taxpayer dollars, resources, staff, energy and time to address the damage the opioid scourge has left in its wake and to address its many casualties.”
