Richard Fields, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing the Cherokee Nation, which includes 200,000 people in 14 Oklahoma counties, said distributors must bear part of the blame because they knew “an obscene amount of drugs” was being distributed to states and small towns.”

(Columbus Dispatch) Ohio is going after drug manufacturers to help clean up the state’s deadly opioid epidemic, but major drug distributors — including Cardinal Health of Dublin — are not part of Ohio’s current legal action.

That hasn’t been the case elsewhere, including West Virginia, which went after Cardinal and other distributors; the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, which recently sued Cardinal, two other distributors and three drug store chains; and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has reached settlements with Cardinal that date back nearly a decade. Read More