Federal Judge Orders Release Of Dataset Showing Drug Industry's Role In Opioid Crisis

For the first time, a federal court in Ohio is releasing a trove of data that offers far more detail about the size and scope of the nation's opioid epidemic — and about the role played by drug companies and pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens and Johnson & Johnson that profited from the rapid growth of prescription opioid sales.

"I don't think America truly understands the scope and depth, the level of penetration these pills had in their communities," says Paul Farrell with the firm Greene, Ketchum, Farrell, Bailey & Tweel. "It's going to be an awakening."

Farrell is one of three co-lead attorneys suing the pharmaceutical industry as part of the largest consolidated civil lawsuit related to drug industry's role in the opioid epidemic in the U.S., scheduled to go to trial in October.

Some drug companies fought in court to keep the information secret, arguing that it contains proprietary details about their business practices. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration also resisted releasing the data, arguing that it included sensitive information used by law enforcement.

But a large portion of the searchable database, known as ARCOS, is set to be released in an order signed by Judge Dan Polster on Monday. Once available to the public later this week, it will offer a transaction-by-transaction account of how opioid pain pills were made, distributed and sold by pharmacy chains from 2006 through 2012 when the addiction epidemic was growing fast.