Lorain takes opioid battle to next level

The city of Lorain took a bold move to sue pharmaceutical companies officials say are contributing to the erosion of families and destruction of individual lives.

Attorneys David M. Cuppage of Cleveland and Paul J. Napoli of New York filed the 236-page suit for the city June 29 in Lorain County Common Pleas Court seeking damages from the drug manufacturers for allegedly getting some residents addicted to prescription painkillers.

The lawsuit contends the drug manufacturers only care about “corporate greed” for prescription drug profits and not about what is has been done to the suffering drug users, their families and the city of Lorain.

Lorain is seeking unspecified damages and a jury trial to decide the claims.

Defendants include: Purdue Pharma L.P., Purdue Pharma Inc. and the Purdue Frederick Co. Inc. of Wilmington, Del.; Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. of Wilmington, Del.; Cephalon Inc. of Wilmington, Del.; Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, N.J.; Janssen Pharmaseuticals Inc. of Harrisburg, Pa.; Endo Pharmaceuticals of Wilmington, Del.; Allergan PLC of Columbus; Actavis Inc. of Cincinnati; McKesson Corp. of Columbus; Cardinal Health Inc. of Dublin; Americsourcebergen Corp. of Cleveland; Russell Portenoy of New York; Perry Fine of Salt Lake City; Scott Fishman of Sacramento, Calif.; and Lynn Webster of Salt Lake City.

The suit contends individual defendants are doctors “instrumental in promoting opioids for sale and distribution nationally and in the city of Lorain.”

Opioid users are turning to heroin because it is cheaper. For the price of one prescription pill, users can buy a bag of heroin and get multiple highs.

Lorain follows governmental agencies from across the country, including Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and the city of Dayton, suing drug manufacturers.

DeWine filed a suit in May in Ross County Common Pleas Court against five leading prescription opioid manufacturers and their related companies. He alleges the drug companies engaged in fraudulent marketing regarding the risks and benefits of prescription opioids which fueled Ohio’s opioid epidemic.

DeWine said, “We believe the evidence will also show that these companies got thousands and thousands of Ohioans — our friends, our family members, our co-workers, our kids — addicted to opioid pain medications, which has all too often led to use of the cheaper alternatives of heroin and synthetic opioids. These drug manufacturers led prescribers to believe that opioids were not addictive, that addiction was an easy thing to overcome, or that addiction could actually be treated by taking even more opioids.”

Dayton, which filed suit in June, is seeking recovery of cost to the community, including increases in law enforcement, educational and community programs and drug support programs to respond to the opioid epidemic.

It’s too early to tell how far these suits will go and whether cities, states and other public entities would prevail.

However, The Washington Post reported July 5, 2016, that Pfizer, the world’s second-largest drug company, agreed to a written code of conduct for the marketing of opioids that some officials hope would set a standard for manufacturers of narcotics and help curb the use of the addictive painkillers.

Terms of the agreement were reached with the city of Chicago, which years earlier, sued five other opioid manufacturers over alleged misleading marketing of opioids.

The Post said though Pfizer does not sell many opioids compared with other industry leaders, its action sets it apart from companies that were accused of fueling an epidemic of opioid misuse through aggressive marketing of their products.

Now, the Lorain suit contends drug use exploded into the opioid and heroin epidemic and has claimed the lives of hundreds of Lorain County residents and thousands of Ohioans.

Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer said, “I look at this issue as one of right and wrong. And I think that people in positions of power in these billion-dollar profit-generating corporations knew what they were doing.”

In recent years, Ritenauer said, drug companies paid people to talk positively about their medicines, making sales pitches and offering training about products they knew were addictive.

Lorain County Coroner Dr. Stephen Evans said from 2000-09, there were about 12.5 overdose deaths a year.

Evans said in 2016, there were 132 deaths, and the county in 2017 is on track for more than 200 overdose deaths. That’s not good news. It’s too early to envision if Lorain will reach settlements or opt for trials.

What is clear is Lorain is serious about this issue.