The Chicago Tribune on how we can’t reward one of the main culprits of the opioid epidemic:

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering an amoral deal that would give the notorious Sackler family immunity from lawsuits that target their leading role in the opioid epidemic.

The Sacklers made billions off the epidemic, pumping out prescription opioid pills by the bushel. As the death toll grew, the Sacklers stripped more than $10 billion from their company, Purdue Pharma, and stashed the dirty money in trusts overseas.

They put the remaining shell of the company into bankruptcy and eventually agreed to pay $6 billion to their victims, but only in exchange for sweeping protection from all related legal claims. Under the proposed settlement, no one in the family was required to file for personal bankruptcy. Instead, the Sacklers could walk off with billions and no worries about being held accountable in other courts.

How accountable could they be? During the Supreme Court arguments, a lawyer for Purdue’s creditors pegged the estimated value of all related claims at a mind-boggling $40 trillion, so $6 billion is practically nothing in relation to the potential monetary value of the damage done . ...

The justices peppered the lawyers with questions indicating they were struggling to arrive at a decision: Do they bless an unjust arrangement, taking away the due-process rights of those who would otherwise sue the Sacklers separately? Or do they reject a settlement that most of the parties want — and potentially lose out on $6 billion that would help states put more resources into helping addicts?

Anyone who thinks the answer is to take the money and run should carefully consider the alarming course of the epidemic, which just keeps getting worse.

It all started with individuals being hooked on opioids that were prescribed for them, most famously the Oxycontin that Purdue recklessly marketed to mostly unwitting physicians. As the Sacklers wrung every penny they could from their company, and prescription opioids became more expensive and harder to obtain, those addicts increasingly fed their habits with illegal street drugs — first heroin and, later, the dangerous synthetic opioid known as fentanyl . ...

The Sacklers have denied they engineered the opioid epidemic, blamed the media for distorting their actions and claimed their $6 billion offer represents the amount they took from the company, minus taxes . ...

Yes, states around the U.S. could put Sackler cash to good use. But we hope that in the interest of justice and human decency, the Supreme Court gives a ... thumbs-down to the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy scheme.