Supervisors join opioid lawsuit

Supervisors join opioid lawsuit

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Madison County will join a class-action lawsuit against large pharmaceutical conglomerates over the opioid crisis.

The Board of Supervisors last week approved a request from County Attorney Mike Espy to join the lawsuit, which is seeking millions in damages from the companies it alleges precipitated the crisis that killed an estimated 69,000 Americans in 2019.

Espy advised the board that a potential settlement with the companies could mean a windfall for Madison County, which had 25 drug overdose deaths in 2018.

The contract brings in the New York-based law firm Napoli Shkolnik to represent the county "in association with Mike Espy." Shkolnik is currently representing more than 200 counties and cities nationwide.

The contract pays the attorneys on a contingency basis, meaning Madison County will pay no fees or be charged with expenses unless and until there is a financial recovery. If there is, the lawyers will take a third of the settlement money for their services. Espy agreed not to charge the county any hourly fees to work on the case but will get his cut.

Other governmental agencies in Mississippi already involved in the lawsuit includes 42 of 82 counties and 23 cities, including Jackson, Hattiesburg, Laurel and Tupelo.

On average, it's estimated that more than 55,000 Americans die each year from a drug overdose, which has become the leading cause of death of individuals under the age of 50. Officials say more than 60 percent of those overdose deaths are caused by opioids, which marks a 300-percent increase over the past 15 years.

The complaints, filed on behalf of the hundreds of governmental bodies from every state in the country, typically allege the distributors of these opioids violated the federal Controlled Substances Act by failing to alert the DEA of suspicious purchases such as unusual size, frequency or patterns.

The lawsuits also usually claim that the pharmaceutical companies exaggerated the benefits of the drugs and failed to warn doctors about their addictive nature.

One lawsuit that won a large settlement in Ohio claimed that there were 793 million doses of opioids prescribed in Ohio in 2012. That number is 60-times larger than the entire population of the state. In 2010, there were 254 million prescriptions for opioids filled in the U.S., an amount capable of treating every adult in the country — 24 hours a day — for one month.

In Mississippi, the DEA's pain pill database shows that from 2006 to 2012, there were more than 800 million prescription pills supplied to Mississippi.

In 2016, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Director John Dowdy said opioids played at least some role in 70 to 74-percent of all overdose deaths in the state.

The settlements are hitting the companies hard.

In 2019, opioid distributors McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen agreed to a $260 million settlement with Cuyahoga and Summit counties in Ohio, according to The Washington Post. McKesson also paid $150 million civil penalty for violating the Controlled Substance Act.



Also in 2019, OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy after settling with state and local governments to the tune of $12 billion.

The CDC estimates that there are roughly 2 million Americans currently addicted to opioids and more than 90 million Americans have used a prescription-strength pain killer within the past year.






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