What to do about suspicious orders is focus in opioid case

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Two Ohio counties are asking a judge to find that drugmakers and distributors were not allowed to ship suspicious orders of controlled substances to pharmacies.

The request from Cuyahoga and Summit counties came Friday among a flurry of filings in a case in which local governments seek to hold the drug industry accountable for a nationwide opioid crisis.

The motions come days after a key set of data in the cases was made public. According to a Washington Post analysis, it shows that 76 billion pain pills were shipped from 2006 through 2012, a span when overdose deaths ballooned.

Regulations on whether suspicious orders can be shipped is under dispute in the case. A ruling that those orders cannot be shipped would clear the way for governments to assert that drug companies ignored the regulations.