What's happened so far in West Virginia's historic opioid trial

After more than six weeks and dozens of witnesses, Huntington and Cabell County have finished presenting their arguments that drug distributors fueled the opioid crisis. Now, the companies will have their say.


Attorneys for the City of Huntington and Cabell County have spent more than six weeks trying to convince a federal judge that the nation’s three major drug distributors fueled an opioid epidemic that they say ravaged their community.

Now, U.S. District Judge David Faber is about to hear a much different story.

Summing up the last nearly seven weeks of testimony from their perspective, attorneys for the three large distributors — AmerisourceBergen, McKesson and Cardinal Health — argued Thursday that the city and county failed to prove how the companies are at fault, while asking for the judge to end the case early.

The epidemic and the large volume of prescription pills that flooded Cabell County were the result of overprescribing by doctors who adhered to medical standards at the time, they said — not the fault of distributors.

Read more: https://mountainstatespotlight.org/2021/07/02/whats-happened-so-far-in-west-virginias-historic-opioid-trial/