

THE HEROIN AND OPIOID
EPIDEMIC IN AMERICAN

DRUG DEATHS IN AMERICA ARE RISING
FASTER THAN EVER
Controlled Substance:
High risk for addiction and dependence. Can cause respiratory distress and death when taken in high doses or when combined with other substances, especially alcohol.
Brands:
Norco, Vicodin, Lorcet, Hycet, Zamicet, Vicodin HP, Xodol 10/300, Vicodin ES, Lorcet HD and Verdrocet.
Opioid abuse is rampant in states like Alabama and Ohio, where paramedics are increasingly spending time responding to overdoses and where coroners’ offices are running out of room to store bodies. In 2012, there were 793 million doses of opioids prescribed in the state, enough to supply every man, woman, and child, with 68 pills each. Roughly 20 percent of the state’s population was prescribed an opioid in 2016. And Ohio leads the nation in overdose deaths.
Who is responsible for this? Some attorneys general and advocates are now asking in court whether the pharmaceutical companies who marketed the drugs and downplayed their addictive nature can be held legally responsible for and made to pay for the consequences of the crisis. This may not be such an outlandish idea; in fact, there’s a good precedent. In 1998, the tobacco industry, 46 states, and six other jurisdictions entered into the largest civil-litigation settlement agreement in U.S. history. State attorneys general had sued tobacco companies, arguing that the companies should take up the burden of paying for the costs of treating smoking-related diseases. In the settlement, which left the tobacco industry immune from future state and federal suits, the companies agreed to make annual payments to the states, in perpetuity, to fund public-health programs and anti-smoking campaigns.

Now, as a new public-health crisis ravages states, Ohio’s Attorney General Mike DeWine filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a handful of pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Johnson & Johnson. The lawsuit accuses the companies of spending millions on marketing campaigns that “trivialize the risks of opioids while overstating the benefits of using them for chronic pain.” The companies, the lawsuit alleges, lobbied doctors to influence their opinions about the safety of opioids, “borrowing a page from Big Tobacco.”
The lawsuit follows similar recent lawsuits in Illinois, Mississippi, four counties in New York, and Santa Clara and Orange Counties in California.
Last month, the Cherokee Nation filed a lawsuit against distributors and pharmacies in tribal court over the opioid epidemic. In January, the city of Everett, Washington,filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, alleging that the company knew the drug was being funneled into the black market but did nothing to stop it.
“What you’re getting now is a lot more legal minds across the country focusing on this, and figuring out how to pay these huge bills,” Sam Quinones, the author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, told me. “Everyone is groping for a legal theory that will work in court.”
There is some significant evidence that pharmaceutical companies may have engaged in some activities that led to the opioid crisis. A Los Angeles Times investigation into Purdue Pharma, for instance, found that the drug maker, which marketed OxyContin as relieving pain for 12 hours, knew that the drug wore off before that time period. Since the drug didn’t last as long as promised, some patients suffered withdrawal, which led them to become addicted. (Purdue responded that OxyContin had been approved by the FDA as a 12-hour drug, and said it was working to “address our nation’s opioid epidemic.”)
Are Doctors Just Legal Drug Dealers? What They Don’t Want You to Know About the Opiate Epidemic
