State Sets Massive Precedent, Makes Big Pharma Pay to Fix Opioid Crisis THEY CAUSED

 Arkansas has become the latest state to hold Big Pharma accountable  for its role in the country’s ongoing opioid crisis, but unlike the  other states that have filed lawsuits against major pharmaceutical  companies, Arkansas is demanding compensation for solutions to end the  epidemic. 

The lawsuit,  which named 52 opioid manufacturers and 13 distributors, physicians,  pharmacists and retailers, argues that the pharmaceutical companies “falsely  touted the benefits of long-term opioid use, including the supposed  ability of opioids to improve function and quality of life,” despite research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which stated that “there is ‘no good evidence’ supporting these claims.”  

“Each Defendant spent, and some continue to spend,  millions of dollars on promotional activities and materials that falsely  deny or trivialize the risks of opioids while overstating the benefits  of using them to treat chronic pain. As to the risks, Defendants falsely  and misleadingly, and sometimes contrary to the language of their  drugs’ labels: downplayed the serious risk of addiction; promoted the  concept of “pseudo-addiction” and thus advocated that the signs of  addiction should be treated with more opioids.”

The lawsuit highlighted the damage the opioid epidemic has caused in  the state of Arkansas, noting that when individuals become addicted to  opioids, the addiction affects every aspect of their lives and often  results in “job loss, loss of custody of children, physical and mental health problems, homelessness, and incarceration.”  

Big Pharma’s efforts to convince doctors to prescribe opioids like  candy have worked extremely well. As the lawsuit stated, opioids are now  the most prescribed class of drugs, generating $11 billion in revenue for drug companies in 2014 alone. 

“As opioid prescribing has skyrocketed in Arkansas,  so too have overdose deaths. Today, prescription opioids are the leading  cause of drug-related death in Arkansas, and by a wide margin. Arkansas  also has seen a dramatic surge in hospital and in-patient admissions  linked to opioid abuse. Alarmingly, and in keeping with a pattern seen  across the nation, many Arkansans addicted to prescription opioids are  now turning to heroin because it supplies a similar high at a fraction  of the street cost of prescription opioids.”

Instead of just demanding millions of dollars in damages, Arkansas’s  lawsuit is unique in that it calls for the manufacturers and  distributors to pay for the creation of mental health clinics, opioid  abuse centers, and other treatment programs. 

“Our case is unique in that regard because it focuses on a remedy that will solve this problem,” Attorney Jerome Tapley told CNN. 

The lawsuit also noted that statistics have shown that many  individuals who are addicted to opioids start with prescription  painkillers and then turn to heroin when their prescriptions run out,  and “at least 75 percent of all people who began to abuse opioids in the 2000s, started with prescription drugs.” 

However, despite the fact that the heroin being sold in states like  Arkansas has been found to be laced with the synthetic opioid  fentanyl—causing an alarming increase in overdose deaths—nothing has  been done to make pharmaceutical companies pay for their role in the  crisis 

“Despite the scope of these statewide efforts, the effects of  Defendants’ marketing scheme have yet to be reversed and continue to  ravage the State and Arkansas families. Prescription opioid abuse has an  enormous impact on the health and safety of individuals as well as  communities they inhabit. Some of the repercussions facing individuals  include,” the lawsuit stated. 

Arkansas is the 17th state to file a lawsuit  against several major opioid manufacturers and distributors, in an  attempt to hold them accountable for the deadly epidemic that has killed  thousands of Americans in recent years. 

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By TFTP Staff Writer: @rachelblevins

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