Andy Beshear says he has filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and two of its subsidiaries. Beshear says the companies persuaded doctors and patients that its opioid drugs were "rarely addictive" when used for chronic pain in order to increase the sales of their product.
Beshear says the companies violated the state's Consumer Protection Act and the Kentucky Medicaid and Kentucky Assistance Program fraud statutes.
The lawsuit was filed in McCracken Circuit Court because Beshear says some of the patients were treated in Paducah.
The suit says, "One opioid addiction treatment center in Paducah, Kentucky doubled in size to meet the growing needs of the community. The center reports seeing as many (as) 300 patients, of all ages and from all backgrounds, for addiction to prescription opioids, including Janssen opioids, heroin, and fentanyl."
Beshear has also sued Endo Pharmaceuticals, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corporation. Together, Beshear said those companies supplied 85 percent of opioid-based prescription painkillers in Kentucky.
From 2006 to 2015, Beshear said Kentucky had more opioid prescriptions than people and the state had the sixth-highest number of opioid-related deaths in the country.
You can see the entire legal document below, Paducah and McCracken County are reference in items 19 and 94.
On the Net:
Lawsuit Document from McCracken Circuit Court
