Amid crisis, state suing opioid manufacturers, distributors

No Georgia community is a stranger to the devastating effects of the opioid crisis.

From 1999 to 2017, Georgia lost nearly 8,000 people to opioid overdoses. That’s more than the population of 16 individual counties in our state. Today, an estimated 180,000 Georgians are living with an opioid use disorder, which is more than the population of Macon, the fourth largest city in our state.

Families and communities in Georgia have suffered emotionally and financially, and the state itself has borne huge financial costs related to, among other things, medical care for individuals suffering from opioid-related addiction and medical conditions, treatment of infants born with opioid-related medical conditions, counseling and rehabilitation services, a variety of social services, law enforcement and public safety efforts and lost productivity.

On Day One in my role as attorney general, I made addressing the opioid crisis a priority because of the devastating effect it has had on our state. My first step was to create the Georgia Statewide Opioid Task Force, which is composed of more than 300 partners around the state, including law enforcement officials, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and private enterprises. I wanted to ensure we had an infrastructure of communication to bridge any gaps in our state’s response. As a result of our first couple of meetings, we also launched a marketing and educational campaign called “Dose of Reality” to raise awareness about opioid addiction and encourage community action.

As I learned more about the harm that has resulted from the wrongful sale and marketing of opioids in the state, I quickly came to realize that additional measures were necessary. I resolved to take action and put together an expert legal team to file a lawsuit against those responsible for fueling the crisis in our state.

We believe that the manufacturers named in the lawsuit made deceptive and misleading claims about the safety and efficacy of opioids so that the medical community would reverse its previous understanding that opioids were unsafe for the treatment of chronic pain. The manufacturers we investigated allegedly played down the dangerous addiction risks of opioids, overstated their benefits and even paid people who appeared to be unbiased experts in the field to promote these deceptive claims.

We are also seeking to hold accountable the opioid distributors that allegedly failed to comply with their legal obligations to monitor, detect, report, investigate and prevent the fulfillment of suspicious orders. We allege that they essentially looked the other way while filling highly suspect orders for excessive quantities of opioids and flooded the state with these drugs, resulting in their widespread diversion for illegal and/or nonmedical purposes.

With this action, we are seeking injunctive relief and restitution to cover the costs incurred by the state of Georgia in dealing with this crisis to date and in the future.

As attorney general, I have dedicated every available resource our office has to fight the opioid epidemic — whether by increasing communication and coordination through our Statewide Opioid Task Force, cracking down on illegal prescribing through our Medicaid Fraud Control Unit or conducting training opportunities for law enforcement and prosecutors through our national partnerships. As our office pursues legal action against those who may have had a role in fueling this epidemic, I feel very strongly that our legal team is in the best position to ensure the interests of Georgians are protected. We will continue working until there are no more tears, no more deaths and no more heartache as a result of the opioid crisis in Georgia.

Carr