Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Kentucky Attorney General Wants T-Shirts Pulled

Calling it a "cynical effort" to profit from people who have died from drug abuse, top officials in three states have asked a boutique fashion company to cease selling T-shirts that feature the names of well-known prescription drugs.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi along with the attorneys general of Kentucky and Maine this week sent a letter to Kitson Inc. criticizing the company for selling sport jersey type shirts with the drug names Vicodin, Xanax and Adderall written on the back.

An email to the company — which sells items online and at stores in California — was not immediately returned.

But in a statement posted on the company's Facebook page following a discussion about the shirts on NBC, Kitson contends that the T-shirts are helping create a dialogue about drug abuse.The statement also adds: "The t shirts are simply a mirror of what is occurring in our culture. Perhaps more discussion about those whose behavior truly contributes to the deaths every 19 minutes from prescription drugs, those who provide the opportunity for prescription drugs to fall into the hands of our youth, and those who flood the market with the ads, would be a more salient topic."

But the letter from Bondi, Maine Attorney General Janet Mills and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway disputes the idea the shirts "open the door to a dialogue."

Instead the three state officials maintain that marketing the shirts "demonstrates not an interest in educating the public about the dangers of prescription drug abuse but rather a most cynical effort to profit on the backs of the thousands of lives lost to this epidemic."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/09/05/2805817/fla-attorney-general-wants-t-shirts.html#storylink=cpy

Related Content