A lawsuit that was brought against a CVS pharmacy in Maryland claims that the company sold medications that contain the same ingredients as an illegal drug that was banned in several states. The drugs involved in this lawsuit that was ordered by doctors include Hydrocodone, OxyContin, and Xanax. CVS is among the biggest retail pharmacy chains in the United States, with hundreds of pharmacies located in states from coast to coast. There are literally thousands of CVS pharmacies in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC, plus many more around the country.

As defined under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there are four main classifications of controlled substances. Those classifications are prescription drugs containing one or more of the listed ingredients, over-the-counter medications that contain one or more of those ingredients, and miscellaneous drugs. In order for a medication to be classified as an over-the-counter or prescription drug, it must have been approved by the FDA. The Controlled Substances Act makes it illegal to sell any type of medication that has a pharmacist’s warning label on it. According to the lawsuit, Takata failed to make a sufficient disclosure of its hydrocodone and oxycodone products to its customers.

CVS claims it did not know that the two medications it sold were scheduled specifically by state health boards to only be used by patients who need prescription drugs for pain management. CVS says it had no idea until recently that the pharmacy’s mail order pharmacy service provided the medications. The lawsuit says that the company did not inform its customers that the drugs could be abused and that potential dangers exist with taking oxycodone and hydrocodone combination. In addition, the complaint alleges that CVS did not instruct its pharmacists on the proper ordering and dispensing of these medications.

A CVS Pharmacy Lawsuit paints a grim picture of a health care delivery system gone bad. According to the complaint, the company provided prescriptions to individuals in counties where it did not have a local pharmaceutical distributor and did not provide educational information on the risks inherent in the products. The lawsuit says that CVS was negligent in failing to adequately train its pharmacists. In one case, a representative in a drugstore chain visited a college campus to talk with students about the lawsuit and the potential risks associated with taking oxycodone and hydrocodone. She also told students that if they developed a chronic condition, they faced “potentially significant legal difficulties.” In another case, a representative from the company showed medical staff a medical card with the logo of CVS on it and then left without filling it out.

Many of these lawsuits arise out of the state of Kentucky. There are now more than one hundred lawsuits filed in this state alone. Most of these involve individuals who obtained prescriptions for controlled substances through online pharmacies without the knowledge that those pharmacies operate according to federal and state laws. Many of these plaintiffs were given a free trial pack of oxycodone pills from a website; when they returned to the site to pick up their prescriptions, they discovered that the pills had already been filled at a CVS Pharmacy. Many plaintiffs say that the pills were unmarked, but someone had written down the name of CVS on the box. The person then took the pills, threw them away, and reported CVS as the source of the pills.

Some of these lawsuits have been successful. An eighteen-year-old Kentucky woman won her case against two Kentucky pharmacies. She was awarded $500 plus costs and was ordered to pay for two funerals and her daughter’s college tuition. A Maryland man won his lawsuit against two different pharmacists and was owed $500 plus his attorney fees. He is appealing the verdict.