Drugmakers, distributors face deluge of opioid suits

The companies that manufacture and distribute highly addictive painkillers are facing a barrage of lawsuits for the toll their product has taken on communities across the country as the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history continues to escalate.

Within the past year, at least 25 states, cities and counties have filed civil cases against manufacturers, distributors and large drugstore chains that make up the $13 billion-a-year opioid industry. In the past few weeks alone, the attorneys general for Ohio and Missouri, along with the district attorneys for three counties in Tennessee, filed suits against the industry — and the attorney general for Oklahoma filed suit on Friday.

The strategy echoes the effort against major tobacco companies in the 1990s and is born of similar frustration over rising death rates and the increasing costs of addressing the continuing public health crisis. After years of government and pharmaceutical firms failing to control the problem, some lawyers say the suits have the potential to force the industry to curb practices that contribute to it.

“If they’re not going to do it voluntarily, we’re going to drag them to the table and make them,” said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who sued five drug manufacturers for the costs of the opioid epidemic.

Dozens of other state, county and city governments and local law enforcement agencies are considering legal action. Some states are interviewing law firms.

Delaware is among a handful of states that are even issuing “requests for proposals” from law firms.

In addition, more than half the country’s state attorneys general — Republicans and Democrats — have banded together to investigate the industry.

Two congressional panels also are examining the industry — the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Justice Department’s Inspector General is investigating why the Drug Enforcement Administration slowed enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies.

Representatives of the companies deny wrongdoing and vow to vigorously defend themselves. They said they have taken steps to prevent the diversion of their drugs to the black market. Stemming the epidemic, they said, will take a coordinated effort by doctors, the industry and federal and local government agencies.

The lawsuits come as states and communities grapple with the economic impact of a prescription drug epidemic that has resulted in nearly 180,000 overdose deaths between 2000 and 2015 — more than three times the number of Americans who died during the Vietnam War. The epidemic has led to thousands more deaths from overdoses of heroin and fentanyl, which are becoming easier and cheaper to obtain than prescription drugs.