(NewsNation) — The Justice Department is suing CVS, the largest pharmacy chain in the U.S., alleging it sold unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances, according to the lawsuit filed last week in the Rhode Island District Court.
CVS and its subsidiaries operate 9,000 locations nationwide and fill more than a billion prescriptions each year, according to the 97-page complaint. The government claims that from October 2013 to now, “CVS knowingly filled prescriptions for controlled substances that lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were not valid, and/or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice.”
Many of the prescriptions were for opioids in “dangerous and excessive quantities,” the lawsuit says.
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“The practices alleged contributed to the opioid crisis and opioid-related deaths, and today’s complaint seeks to hold CVS accountable for its misconduct,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, in a news release.
Knowingly filling these prescriptions would be a violation of the Controlled Substances Act. The Department of Justice also claims CVS sought reimbursement from federal healthcare programs for those prescriptions, which violates the False Claims Act.
The lawsuit alleges CVS cut staffing to reduce labor costs, which impacted medication safety.
“When lives are destroyed or lost to opioid abuse, it doesn’t matter if the supplier is a street-level dealer, a pill mill, or a nationwide corporation,” said U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia in a news release. “We will pursue whatever legal action is necessary to stop any enterprise, regardless of size, that places profit over the safety of our citizens.”
