Records: Drug Firms Shipped Thousands of Pills to Rural W.Va.

Information about pill shipments that prescription drug distributors being sued by the state had sought to keep secret show that the firms flooded rural West Virginia with hundreds of thousands of painkillers.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports a Boone County judge on Monday ordered the release of previously sealed court documents about prescription pain pill shipments to the state.

The drug distributors had been fighting to keep the pill shipment numbers under wraps in a lawsuit filed by the attorney general’s office and other agencies, alleging the firms helped fuel the prescription drug problem in West Virginia.

Court records show the drug distributors shipped large quantities of oxycodone and hydrocodone tablets to small towns like War, Kermit, Oceana, Van and Crab Orchard, supplying mom-and-pop pharmacies that filled prescriptions from doctors.