Walgreens helped fuel the opioid epidemic in San Francisco by shipping hundreds of thousands of "suspicious orders" of prescription drugs to its pharmacies, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
More than 100 million prescription opioid pills were dispensed by Walgreens in the city between 2006 and 2020, and during that time, the pharmacy giant failed to investigate hundreds of thousands of orders deemed suspicious, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote in his 112-page opinion in a lawsuit filed by San Francisco against major prescription-drug sellers.
How much the company will have to pay will be determined at a later trial date.
