Opioid Death Lawsuits Against Pharmaceutical Companies
Opioids are a category of drugs produced from naturally occurring chemicals in the opium poppy plant or synthesized chemically into substances that mimic the pharmacological properties of those plant-based drugs. The intentional over-manufacturing and over-prescribing of some of these substances in recent decades have resulted in numerous opioid death lawsuits in both criminal and civil courts and at the state and federal level in the United States.
Nature of the Drugs Resulting in Opioid Death Lawsuits
Opioids that are produced from the poppy plant include medicines like morphine and codeine, as well as illegal drugs such as heroin. Synthetic opioids include medicines such as fentanyl and methadone, as well as several non-medicinal versions of fentanyl. What these drugs all have in common are pharmacological properties that include potent analgesic (pain-relieving) capabilities. They can also produce intense feelings of euphoria, which, when combined with their chemically addictive properties, result in these being among the most dangerous drugs regularly abused.
The tendency of these drugs to produce addiction and abuse has been well-recognized for centuries, from the smoking of opium to the misuse of refined morphine. Even heroin, an entirely illegal drug, was originally developed by the Bayer Company in the 1890s as a more effective alternative to morphine and codeine before its much more addictive properties led it to be banned in later decades.
What has Changed to Produce Wave of Opioid Deaths and Lawsuits?
However, what has been different in recent years has been the active engagement of some companies in the pharmaceutical industry in over-promoting the use of opioids to boost profits rather than improve patient health. This has resulted in an opioid crisis in the United States that has taken half a million American lives over the last 20 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), annual overdose deaths from opioids in the U.S. have quadrupled from 1999 to 2019.
This pattern of over-supply and over-prescription has resulted in a much larger group of people becoming addicted to opioids through prescription use, then continuing on to abuse the drugs either in their legal or illegal variants.
Recent Events in Opioid Death Lawsuits
Central to the recent epidemic of opioid abuse and deaths have been the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma. Purdue is a privately-held company in New York that was founded in the 1890s. Over the last few decades, Purdue’s focus has been on producing pain relief medication, primarily several different opioid medications. The one that became the most problematic was OxyContin, a new extended-release version of the drug oxycodone that Purdue developed in the mid-1990s. Oxycodone has been known and used as a pain reliever since it was first produced in Germany in 1916, but Purdue’s development of OxyContin as an extended-release preparation made it much more useful for chronic pain relief.
What was unusual with Purdue Pharma was its efforts in marketing the drug and its use to physicians. Pharmaceutical companies have long marketed new medications to doctors. Still, Purdue’s efforts were particularly over-the-top, including providing doctors free trips to pain-management seminars and directly paying top prescribers to tout the “benefits” of the product to other doctors.
As a result, Purdue became the target of numerous opioid death lawsuits, including individual and class action lawsuits, civil and criminal lawsuits by state attorneys general, and criminal filings by the U.S. Department of Justice. In October 2020, the company reached an agreement with the Justice Department to resolve its criminal opioid deaths lawsuit — that agreement included an admission by the company that is knowingly engaged in activities to promote uses of its drugs “without a legitimate medical purpose.”
Additionally, the Sackler family — the primary owners of Purdue Pharma — filed for bankruptcy court protection as the opioid death lawsuits mounted against their company. This was to contain the multiple civil suits being filed that included individual members of the family. A proposed resolution of the bankruptcy action would include payment of $4.9 billion by the Sacklers, turn Purdue into a “public trust company” that would no longer be under the family’s control, and establish a plan for the distribution of the funds to individual claimants and state and federal government. After five years, the remains of the company could be sold, but any new purchaser would remain under strict monitoring of its opioid drug manufacturing and sales.
This resolution has not been finalized — in particular, several state attorneys general have complained that the agreement doesn’t do enough to hold the family members and company officers personally liable for their actions. Additionally, despite the billions being offered by the family, at least one report estimates that they made as much as $10.8 billion in profits from sales of OxyContin — meaning that far from being personally punished for their actions, they might be left with more than half of the ill-gotten gains from their activities. Discussions and negotiations remain ongoing.
In addition to opioid death lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Pharma, other litigation has been targeting major retail companies that have profited from sales of these drugs. A “multi-district litigation” in federal court in Ohio consolidates numerous individual and class action lawsuits against companies like CVS, Walgreen, Walmart, and Rite Aid — this is because so many of the manufacturers and distributors of opioids (like Purdue Pharma) have already come to final or proposed agreements to resolve lawsuits against them. The pharmacies are the remaining major companies in the drug-sale chain. A trial in this litigation is anticipated by later this year.
To learn more about one person’s journey to and through opioid addiction and on to recovery, view this video from Johns Hopkins Medicine:
Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer
My name is Ed Smith, and I am a Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer. The opioid epidemic in the United States has had widespread and long-lasting impacts on millions of people. If you or a loved one has suffered from an addiction to an opioid medication due to the negligence of another person or company, please call us today at (916) 921-6400 or (800) 404-5400 for friendly and free legal advice. You can also reach us through our online contact form.
You can learn more about us by reading our clients review and some of our past verdicts and settlements at:
Photo Attribution: Image by HeungSoon from Pixabay
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