Walgreens paying San Francisco $230M after city’s win in opioid case

Walgreens will pay the city of San Francisco nearly $230 million after a federal judge found the company liable for contributing to the city’s opioid epidemic.

The settlement, which will be paid out over 14 years, will go toward addressing the city’s opioid crisis, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced Wednesday.

“Opioids have wreaked havoc across our nation leading to immense suffering and untold damage,” he said in a statement. “Cities like San Francisco have shouldered much of the burden of the opioid epidemic.“

“Following our win against Walgreens during the liability phase, this historic agreement ensures Walgreens is held accountable for the crisis they fueled and our City receives appropriate resources to combat the opioid crisis and bring relief to our communities,” Chiu added.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found last August that Walgreens “helped fuel” the opioid epidemic in San Francisco by failing to provide its pharmacists will sufficient resources and putting pressure on them to quickly fill prescriptions.

“The evidence at trial established that from 2006 to 2020, Walgreens pharmacies in San Francisco dispensed hundreds of thousands of red flag opioid prescriptions without performing adequate due diligence,” Breyer said in the decision. 

“As a result of Walgreens’ fifteen-year failure to perform adequate due diligence, Plaintiffs proved that it is more likely than not that Walgreens pharmacies dispensed large volumes of medically illegitimate opioid prescriptions that were diverted for illicit use and that substantially contributed to the opioid epidemic in San Francisco,” he added.