State sues 3 firms over opioids crisis
AG alleges deceit to hawk pain pills
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she sued opioid manufacturers Thursday to “make them pay for what they have done to Arkansas.”
The 52-page complaint, filed in the 6th Judicial Circuit Court of Pulaski County, says three drug companies fueled the opioid epidemic in Arkansas, flooding the state with painkillers through deceitful and aggressive marketing practices and downplaying risks associated with the highly addictive narcotics.
The suit also linked the prevalence of pain pills to growing opioid abuse and overdose deaths, using 2016 research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This epidemic hits every single community,” Rutledge said during a Thursday news conference. “It’s a lethal and tragic addiction that is de-
stroying lives.”
Officials attribute Arkansas’ opioid use to an increase in emergency room visits, first-responders’ frequent use of expensive overdose-reversal drugs on opioid users, longer hospital stays for opioid-addicted newborns, treatment facility admissions and crime.
The attorney general’s suit differs from two recent Arkansas cases leveled against top opioid-makers. Thursday’s filing claims that the companies violated deceptive trade laws by “knowingly making false representations” of the drugs’ characteristics and advertising their use under false pretenses.
Rutledge also argues that the companies committed Medicaid fraud since the state wouldn’t have reimbursed claims for these prescriptions if the opioid-makers hadn’t lied about the drugs’ effectiveness in chronic-pain patients.
Initial research indicated that opioids made by Purdue Pharma, Endo, and Johnson and Johnson Co., were among the most distributed opioids in the state, making those companies the targets of the suit, Rutledge said.
Between 1999 and 2017, the state’s Medicaid program reimbursed pharmacies at least $6.2 million for prescriptions for opioids made by the three companies, according to an analysis of federal data by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Medicaid covered more than 670,000 individual prescriptions for those companies’ opioids during those years, the newspaper’s analysis shows.
For every 100 state residents, there are 114 opioids prescriptions, according to 2016 federal prescribing records. Arkansas’ opioid prescribing rate is second only to Alabama, which had 121 prescriptions for every 100 residents that year.
More Arkansas children, ages 12-17, misused prescription
pain relievers than children in all other states, a 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found.
Opioid-related overdose deaths have also increased over the past decade in the state, but exact figures are unclear because of inconsistencies in coroner reporting and death investigations.
The federal National Center for Injury Prevention and Control found that between 2015 and 2016, opioid-involved deaths rose in “every subgroup examined” — regardless of age, race and sex. The study, released Thursday, looked at fatal overdose information from 31 states and Washington, D.C.
Arkansas wasn’t included in the report because researchers examined only states that submitted reliable data on drug-involved deaths.
Rutledge’s filing comes days after a coalition of officials from 72 counties and 15 cities announced that they sued dozens of drug firms for their roles in the opioid crisis. That case is in Crittenden County Circuit Court.
In December, the Association of Arkansas Counties filed a suit in federal court, that also argued that opioid manufacturers and distributors should pay for the costs related to local opioids misuse. That case is now part of a larger effort called the National Prescription Opiate Litigation, combining at least 64 separate suits. The group litigation has since been transferred to the Northern District of Ohio.
At Thursday’s news conference, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said litigation was vital in recouping existing costs associated with opioid abuse, as well as funding future drug treatment and educational programs for students, medical providers and the general public.
“I’ve seen the problem of prescription drug abuse from just about every angle. I see it as a new angle, when I’m governor,” said Hutchinson, a former Drug Enforcement Administration chief. “And that is the heartache it causes members of families, but also the cost that it is to the state. … I see this as an important step, a significant step, in our overall efforts to combat opioid abuse.”