West Virginia dropped a lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday after Attorney General Jeff Sessions called for reforms to the agency.
The state sued the DEA in December to force changes to the agency’s cap that mandates how many opioids can be manufactured each year. However, the lawsuit was dropped after Sessions called for changes to the yearly limit.
“The DEA’s quota system is fundamentally broken,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said Thursday. “For far too long, it served the industry’s wants, instead of the patients’ needs, inexcusably neglecting evidence of diversion to rely on a formula that continues to kill hundreds each day.”
Sessions issued a directive Thursday calling for the DEA to consider amending its regulations governing the production cap for opioids.
The DEA sets a quota for controlled substances that include powerful opioid painkillers. A major driver of the opioid epidemic has been overprescribing of opioids by healthcare providers.
Federal data estimates that in 2016 more than 64,000 people died from opioid overdoses. West Virginia is one of several states that was hit hard by the epidemic, with 884 people dying due to drug overdoses in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sessions called for the DEA to “act quickly to determine if changes are needed in the quotas.”
Morrisey’s lawsuit was delayed twice due to talks between West Virginia and the federal government. Morrisey said he was appreciative of the “major step” Sessions is taking regarding the quotas.
However, he added that he reserves the right to bring up the lawsuit again depending upon “DEA’s progress in revising its regulation.”
