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Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report 9/25/17

Traditional Media Coverage

Delco files suit against drug makers, docs in opioid war
Sep 25, 2017 | The Daily Local
By Brian McCullough

Delaware County yesterday declared war on drug manufacturers and their doctors, filing suit against 11 suppliers of pain killers for what they claimed is their role in the opioid epidemic in the county.
Dauphin County to sue pharmaceutical companies for role in opioid crisis
Sep 22, 2017 | Pennsylvania Live
By Ivey DeJesus

Dauphin County is about to join the growing ranks of jurisdictions holding drug manufacturers accountable in court for their role in the opioid crisis.
Opioid Battle Shifts Front To Manufacturers
Sep 22, 2017 | WHQR
By Vine Winkel

The battle against opioid addiction in Wilmington and across the country is rising to a new level. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein came to the Port City to discuss the growing investigation into drug manufacturers.
Jacksonville Moves Forward With Plan To Sue Opioid Manufacturers
Sep 22, 2017 | WJCT
By Ryan Benk

The City of Jacksonville is moving forward with plans to launch a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for their role in the city’s worsening opioid addiction crisis.
County manager: Sue pill makers over opiate crisis
Sep 22, 2017 | Citizens Voice
By James Halpin

Citing the increasing toll of the region’s opiate crisis, Luzerne County Manager David Pedri announced Friday he wants to sue the nation’s largest pill manufacturers to recoup the costs the “highly addictive, dangerous” drugs have inflicted.
Pedri proposes Luzerne County suit against prescription drug manufacturers and distributors
Sep 22, 2017 | Sunday Dispatch
By Jennifer Leam-Andres

Luzerne County Manager C. David Pedri is asking county council to sue prescription opioid manufacturers and wholesale distributors to make them pay for “dumping” drugs that created widespread addiction and a financial burden on county government.
Mora County Sues Over Opioid Epidemic
Sep 22, 2017 | KUNM
By Ed Williams

The opioid epidemic has racked up enormous costs for local governments in New Mexico, as cities and counties struggle to pay for medical care, law enforcement and treatment services for people dealing with addiction.
Tenn. lead coalition seeks documents from opioid manufacturers, distributors
Sep 22, 2017 | Claiborne Progress
By Staff

Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III announced Tuesday a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general seeks documents and information from manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids as part of multistate investigations into the nationwide opioid epidemic. This information will enable the attorneys general to evaluate whether manufacturers and distributors engaged in unlawful practices in the marketing, sale, and distribution of opioids. Tennessee is leading the group of 41 attorneys general participating in the multistate investigations.
AG Eric Schneiderman Launches Investigation Into Opioid Crisis
Sep 22, 2017 | WSHU
By Michelle Toussaint

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says that 41 state attorneys general have launched an investigation into manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioid drugs.
Beshear hires law firms for opioid investigation
Sep 22, 2017 | Associated Press
By Adam Bean

Kentucky's Democratic attorney general says he has hired four law firms to investigate and potentially sue several makers and marketers of opioid-based painkillers that have spurred a wave addiction across Appalachia.
Beshear hires Morgan & Morgan, three other law firms to go after pain pill industry
Sep 22, 2017 | Kentucky.com
By Daniel Desrochers

Attorney General Andy Beshear announced Friday that he will partner with four law firms to investigate and potentially sue drug manufacturers, distributors and retailers that contributed to Kentucky’s opioid abuse epidemic.
Ky. AG Hires Motley Rice, Others In Opioid Fight
Sep 22, 2017 | Law 360
By Rachel Graf

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear said Friday his office has hired the law firms Morgan & Morgan, Motley Rice LLC, The Lanier Law Firm and Ransdell Roach & Royse PLLC to assist with a nationwide investigation and potential litigation over drugmakers’ role in the opioid crisis.
Kansas investigating opioid manufacturers, distributors
Sep 24, 2017 | Cherokee Advocate
By Staff

Kansas is part of multi-state investigations of companies that manufacture and distribute prescription opioid drugs, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced on Sept. 19.
Sen. Sparks to represent pharmaceutical companies in class action opioid lawsuit
Sep 23, 2017 | Norman Transcript
By Mack Burke

State Sen. John Sparks, D-Norman, is lining up to defend a group of pharmaceutical companies against state legal action, but he won’t make his arguments at the Capitol.
Opioid investigations taking page from tobacco settlement
Sep 24, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Chistopher Ullery

As investigations target major drug producers for their alleged roles in the nation's opioid abuse crisis, at least one expert says a 20-year-old settlement with tobacco companies could add perspective to the legal battles to come.
The opioid wash cycle: Pharma cos., gov't repeat a lethal dance (OPINION)
Sep 25, 2017 | The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Joseph N. DiStefano

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his counterparts in 40 states said last week that it’s time to look at corporate America’s role in painkiller abuse. About 13 Pennsylvanians died from drug overdoses each day last year, up from nine a day in 2015. That’s more than twice as many as died from road wrecks and guns combined. Most of these victims, he pointed out, started on powerful, legally prescribed pain pills — theirs, or someone else’s — made and marketed by big American drugmakers.
Brock Smith joins opioid epidemic task force
Sep 22, 2017 | Curry Health Network
By Scott Graves

Oregon Rep. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, has been appointed by Gov. Kate Brown to the Opioid Epidemic Task Force.
Sessions opioid speech keeps focus squarely on users and doctors, lets drugmakers off easy
Sep 22, 2017 | Think Progress
By Alan Pyke

Today we are facing the deadliest drug crisis in American history,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday in West Virginia, the latest stop on his ongoing tour of places hit hardest by opioid addiction and overdose deaths.
Lawsuits target industry pushers of opioids
Sep 25, 2017 | El Dorado News Times
By Shea Wilson

The opioid crisis dominates American media headlines. The report from Wednesday’s Washington Post warned that “America’s opioid problem is so bad it’s cutting into U.S. life expectancy.” The gist of the story: While data from the National Vital Statistics Systems Mortality file showed the average American life expectancy grew overall from the years 2000 to 2015, the rise in opioid-related deaths whittled away two and a half months off of the improvement.
Paterson hires law firm to sue drug manufacturers and distributors
Sep 22, 2017 | Paterson Times
By Staff

The city has retained a law firm to take on drug companies that it alleges are responsible for the raging drug epidemic in the streets of Paterson, announced mayor Jose “Joey” Torres on Friday afternoon.
Suing drug makers won’t solve our crisis (Letter to the Editor)
Sep 25, 2017 | Asheville Citizen Times
By Steven A. Mannina

I find it hard to believe that Buncombe County would consider trying to recover the expenses that stem from the opioid epidemic by pursuing the drug makers. Perhaps they should also try to recover the expenses that stem from prostitution by pursuing the mattress manufacturers and the expenses associated with gun violence by pursuing the arms manufacturers. I believe that both of these have been tried unsuccessfully many times before.
HHS Secretary Tom Price and Kellyanne Conway: “All hands needed on deck to turn the tide against the opioid crisis” (PRESS RELEASE)
Sep 25, 2017 | The White House
By Tom Price & Kellyanne Conway

What do the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia have in common with the mountains of West Virginia, the former mill towns of southern New Hampshire and the banks of the Tennessee River?

Broadcast Media Coverage

WDRB in the Morning
Sep 24, 2017 | WRDB (Fox)
By Louisville, KY

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29618926?token=62aab1c8-d872-41f9-b486-b77d3c23d06c
ABC27 News Saturday
Sep 25, 2017 | WHTM (ABC)
By Harrisburg, PA

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29618946?token=62aab1c8-d872-41f9-b486-b77d3c23d06c
WBRE Eyewitness News
Sep 23, 2017 | WBRE (NBC)
By Wilkes Barre, PA

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29618954?token=62aab1c8-d872-41f9-b486-b77d3c23d06c
CBS 21 News at 6
Sep 22, 2017 | WHP (CBS)
By Harrisburg, PA

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29618997?token=62aab1c8-d872-41f9-b486-b77d3c23d06c

Traditional Media Coverage

Delco files suit against drug makers, docs in opioid war

Sep 25, 2017 | The Daily Local

By Brian McCullough

Delaware County yesterday declared war on drug manufacturers and their doctors, filing suit against 11 suppliers of pain killers for what they claimed is their role in the opioid epidemic in the county.
Delaware County officials held a press conference to announce the unprecedented legal filing against 11 major drug suppliers of opioids and their consulting physicians, who they claim have for decades “conspired to deceitfully promote and market the benefits of using opioids to treat chronic pain.”
“Today we are sending a message to the big pharma companies named in this lawsuit that Delaware County will not tolerate their well-documented, abusive opioid sales and marketing tactics that are systematically turning patients – including our fellow citizens – into addicts and then fatalities,” said Dave White, County Councilman and co-chair of the county’s Heroin Task Force. He was joined by District Attorney Jack Whelan, Sheriff Mary McFall Hopper and other members of County Council.
The lawsuit names the following defendants (including the three physicians that are referred to as Known Opinion Leaders (KOLs): Purdue Pharma L.P.; Purdue Pharma Inc.; The Purdue Frederick Company Inc.; Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.; Cephalon, Inc.; Johnson & Johnson; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc.; Endo Health Solutions Inc.; Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Dr. Perry Fine; Dr. Scott Fishman and Dr. Lynn Webster.
Whelan, who co-chairs the Heroin Task Force, added, “We will fight this national epidemic of senseless death and destruction with civil litigation, and that is why the top makers of prescription pain-killer opioids are named as defendants, along with the doctors who helped them unleash their outrageous, illegal business practices that put profits – calculated in the billions – over public safety.”
Handling the county’s case will be trial attorney Robert J. Mongeluzzi, of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky.
“We are honored to represent Delaware County as it undertakes this courageous litigation to hold the suppliers of deadly opioids responsible for their conduct, and hold them accountable in the monetary terms they completely understand,,” Mongeluzzi said. “ Money motivates their every deceitful action and we plan to demonstrate at trial that their actions have been cold and calculated, and we will hold them accountable to appropriately compensate Delaware County – on behalf of its citizens – for the harm they’ve inflicted and continue to inflict through their business practices.”
Delaware County is the fifth largest county in Pennsylvania. It was the first in the state to set up a specific Heroin Task Force and was integral in getting the overdose-reversing drug Narcan into the hands of first responders.
So far 2017, Delaware County has had 167 drug-related deaths, with 145 of those deaths being opioid-related. The CDC estimates that 89 people die every day from an opioid-related overdose in the U.S., and Pennsylvania is among the highest incidence areas for opioid-related abuse and overdose.
White, noting that Delaware County is the third largest employer (with nearly 3,000 employees) in the county, stated, “We were the first county to recognize the need to equip police and first responders with Narcan and that action saved and is saving lives. But this lawsuit demonstrates that we have to get to the source, and that doesn’t just mean the street dealer, but the big pharma suppliers of opioids that have either skirted the law or thumbed their noses at multi-million-dollar fines. Enough is enough. Unlike those companies, the county does not have deep pockets, and we recognize that our costs – including rehabilitation services – is skyrocketing.”
Harris L. Pogust, of Pogust Braslow & Millrood, LLC, who will serve as co-counsel in the litigation, also commended the county for taking the lead among the state’s 67 counties in filing the complaint. “Officials here are acutely aware that the opioid crisis every year is costing the county lives – more than 100 so far just this year – and millions of dollars in economic impact in virtually every area of the government. None of its 49 municipalities is immune from this catastrophe that has become synonymous with the defendants’ conduct in this action.”
Mongeluzzi said his team will include Michael F. Barrett, and Carmen Belefonte, who nearly 12 years ago established – and still directs - SMBB’s Delaware County office.
Co-counsel in the litigation includes the highly acclaimed national firm of Simmons Hadly Conroy, which has frequently collaborated with SMBB and PBM on major mass tort litigation.

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Dauphin County to sue pharmaceutical companies for role in opioid crisis

Sep 22, 2017 | Pennsylvania Live

By Ivey DeJesus

Dauphin County is about to join the growing ranks of jurisdictions holding drug manufacturers accountable in court for their role in the opioid crisis.
In the wake of a record 85 opioid-related deaths last year in Dauphin County, Commissioners Jeff Haste, Mike Pries and George P. Hartwick, III on Monday plan to announce plans to take pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and aggressively market addictive opioids to court.
The commissioners on Friday announced they will retain the law firm of Young, Ricchiuti, Caldwell & Heller, LLC to pursue a civil lawsuit against manufacturers to cover some of the costs for addiction prevention and treatment. The county last year saw an 860 percent increase addiction treatment expenditures.
The announcement from the commissioners comes one day after Delaware County on Thursday became the first Pennsylvania county to sue manufacturers of addictive painkillers.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Delaware County's suit specifices no amount of damages. The county, the report stated, wants to recoup the tens of millions of dollars it has spent on treatment centers and medical services for addicted residents.
Delaware County has had 145 opioid-related drug deaths since Jan. 1. Meanwhile, emergency personnel have saved more than 877 lives using the overdose-reversing medication naloxone, Philly.com reported.
To date, only two states - Mississippi and Ohio - have sued drug manufacturers for their role in the opioid epidemic.
Ohio in March filed suit against: Purdue Pharma Endo Health Solutions Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and subsidiary Cephalon Johnson & Johnson and subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Allergan
In general, the suits accuse the companies of downplaying the addiction risks of prescription opioid drugs in order to increase sales, and at the same time exaggerating their benefits.

The Dauphin County commissioners will be joined on Monday by a handful of state and county leaders, treatment providers and families who have lost loved ones to the overdose crisis.

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Opioid Battle Shifts Front To Manufacturers

Sep 22, 2017 | WHQR

By Vine Winkel

The battle against opioid addiction in Wilmington and across the country is rising to a new level. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein came to the Port City to discuss the growing investigation into drug manufacturers.
The investigation is exploring whether companies may have misled doctors and patients about the addictive nature of legally-prescribed painkilling drugs. It will also look at distributors to determine whether they tried to play loose with the law by not reporting unusually large shipments.
“Tens of thousands of people suffer from opioid misuse disorder. Nearly four people die a day in North Carolina. It is the number one cause of accidental death in this state.”
Attorney General Josh Stein says he’s working with a bipartisan group of 41 other attorney generals in the probe.
“Our investigation will determine whether the drug manufacturers and drug wholesalers unlawfully created or fueled this crisis and if they did I will hold them accountable.”
“Drug addiction is an equal opportunity employer.”
That’s Jon David, Brunswick County’s district attorney and a Coastal Horizons board member. Coastal Horizons is a treatment center in Wilmington.
“What I think the community sometimes doesn’t understand is that is frequently the dynamic that sets up is that what ultimately spirals into addiction, even heroin use, started out innocently enough as a trip to the doctor’s office to seek medical help for an injury, a surgery, something of that sort.”
As was the case with a Coastal Horizons client named Daniel Giddeon.
“My name is Daniel Giddeon, and in America opioid addiction is a very serious matter.”
He’s been battling that addiction for eight years.
“You know this was a prescription, I was not breaking the law. This was something that my doctor said ‘this is okay for you to take’…. And as soon as the doctor knew I was addicted I was cut off.”
So he went out, and started buying heroin.
Again, Jon David.
“The economics of crime take over, heroin has become cheaper relative to prescription narcotics, and so unwittingly this problem has shifted into heroin use and addiction as well.”
Experts say this latest effort revolving around opioid addiction is much needed.
Kenny House is clinical director of Coastal Horizons, and says there are a number of things that community leaders need to do.
“And the attorney general is with other attorneys general around the country addressing the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies and the distributors of some of these opioid prescription medications that have contributed to this crisis.”
The investigation is looking into Purdue Pharma, a company that several states have sued and accused of using deceptive marketing practices related to OxyContin.
The attorneys general are also investigating opioid manufacturers Endo, Janssen, Teva/Cephalon, and Allergan.

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Jacksonville Moves Forward With Plan To Sue Opioid Manufacturers

Sep 22, 2017 | WJCT

By Ryan Benk

The City of Jacksonville is moving forward with plans to launch a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for their role in the city’s worsening opioid addiction crisis.
A new bill filed in directs the city’s Office of General Counsel to investigate claims against the companies and select an outside law firm to represent the River City in court.
In August City Councilman Bill Gulliford organized a presentation to his colleagues by the Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd Law Firm, who’s representing Delray Beach in a similar suit.
Firm representatives laid out a list of options for city leaders pursuing legal action, saying Jacksonville could argue manufacturers engaged in deceptive marketing and that they violated the Florida Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act by overselling opioids to doctors and minimizing the threat of addiction.
“We have innocent people dying every day. These are people and that’s what really irritates me about the pharmaceuticals. They had to know. It’s well documented. They did know that this was addictive and yet they sold it to the medical profession as not being addictive,” he said.
Health information company Castlight Health ranks Jacksonville No. 24 among U.S. cities for the percentage of opioid prescriptions that are abused and the Duval Health Department says the city is among the worst in Florida for babies born addicted to opiate drugs.
Jacksonville averages two deaths a day due to opioid overdoses and the medical examiner says there isn’t enough space to store the bodies of souls lost to the drug.
Gulliford said contrary to initial reports, it won’t be possible for cities to enter in class action lawsuits similar to ones mounted against big tobacco companies because there are too many variables between localities.
Nonetheless, Gulliford said the city will pursue the toughest case possible.
“I’m pretty angry at that group of people and if we can get $100 million out of them, God bless us. I hope we do,” he said.
Gulliford said he’d like to use whatever money the city wins in a possible legal action to fund more prevention and treatment efforts.

Meanwhile, he’s working with Sheriff Mike Williams on combatting crime like gift card fraud that is largely responsible for funding many opioid addicts’ opioid habits.

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County manager: Sue pill makers over opiate crisis

Sep 22, 2017 | Citizens Voice

By James Halpin

Citing the increasing toll of the region’s opiate crisis, Luzerne County Manager David Pedri announced Friday he wants to sue the nation’s largest pill manufacturers to recoup the costs the “highly addictive, dangerous” drugs have inflicted.
“We are taking this action today because Luzerne County homes have been broken and families torn apart by this epidemic,” Pedri said in a statement. “This epidemic has claimed victims from all walks of life and both the financial and emotional costs to the citizens of Luzerne County are staggering.”
Earlier this month, the Luzerne County Coroner’s Office reported handling more than 90 confirmed fatal drug overdoses since the start of the year, on pace to match the record total of 140 overdoses set last year.
In an announcement Friday, Pedri said he is seeking council to approve filing suit against the drug manufacturers and distributors “responsible for dumping millions of dollars’ worth of prescription opiates” into the community.
“It will be alleged that the manufacturing companies pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction, while the distributors breached their legal duties to monitor, detect, investigate, refuse and report suspicious orders of prescription opioids,” Pedri said.
He said that in addition to manufacturers, the lawsuit would target the country’s three largest wholesale drug distributors. Because of the drugs’ danger, the distributors have a responsibility to halt suspicious orders but have failed to adequately do so, Pedri alleges.
He cited a study showing that one in seven people who got more than one opioid prescription were still on the drugs a year later.
“Today the Luzerne County community is paying the price,” he said.
The proposal appeared to have preliminary support, or at least the interest, of some members of council. Councilman Edd Brominski said he was in favor of the move, although he expressed dissatisfaction that Pedri made the announcement without first informing council.
Councilman Tim McGinley said he had not yet seen the proposal but was interested to learn more.
“Obviously the county’s dealing with it,” McGinley said. “It costs the taxpayers money to deal with it because of the results of crime and the results of treatment costs.”
The proposed lawsuit is similar to a suit Delaware County officials filed Thursday against 11 pharmaceutical companies for marketing tactics that county officials say misrepresent the dangers of long-term opioid usage while a national overdose crisis continues to kill tens of thousands of people annually.
The county alleged in its complaint that the companies and three consulting physicians engaged in promotional campaigns that encouraged prolonged and widespread use of their powerful painkillers, despite knowing that in doing so consumers risked damaging health effects and addiction.
The effort has been extremely profitable for drugmakers, the suit alleged, noting that in 2015 opioid sales earned the industry almost $10 billion.
More than 52,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2015, and 2016 appears to have been worse — possibly the highest drug death toll in U.S. history, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during remarks to law enforcement in Harrisburg on Friday.
Noting that Pennsylvania ranked sixth in the nation in fatal overdoses in 2015, Sessions announced the U.S. Department of Justice is awarding nearly $20 million in grant funding to help law enforcement and public health agencies battle the epidemic.

“This is an urgent problem and we are making it a top priority,” Sessions said in prepared remarks. “I believe that these new resources and new efforts will make a difference, bring more criminals to justice, and ultimately save lives.”

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Pedri proposes Luzerne County suit against prescription drug manufacturers and distributors

Sep 22, 2017 | Sunday Dispatch

By Jennifer Leam-Andres

Luzerne County Manager C. David Pedri is asking county council to sue prescription opioid manufacturers and wholesale distributors to make them pay for “dumping” drugs that created widespread addiction and a financial burden on county government.
“We are taking this action today because Luzerne County homes have been broken and families torn apart by this epidemic,” Pedri said in a release. “This epidemic has claimed victims from all walks of life and both the financial and emotional costs to the citizens of Luzerne County are staggering.”
The proposed action is on the heels of a suit filed Thursday by Delaware County against 11 major opioid drug suppliers and their consulting physicians — the first such county suit in the state. More are expected to follow.
Pedri is asking Luzerne County Council members to vote on initiating a suit at their next meeting Tuesday, which starts at 6 p.m. at the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre.
According to Pedri’s release:
He proposes suing some of the largest prescription opioid manufacturers, their related companies and the country’s three largest wholesale drug distributors.
The suit would allege the manufacturing companies pushed highly addictive and dangerous opioids while falsely representing to doctors that patients would rarely become addicted. Distributors breached their legal duties to monitor, detect, investigate, refuse and report suspicious orders of prescription opioids.
Because opioid pills are highly addictive, Congress designed a system in 1970 to control the volume distributed in the country and limit the right to deliver them to a few select wholesalers.
“In exchange, those companies agreed to do a very important job — halt suspicious orders and control against the diversion of these dangerous drugs to illegitimate uses,” Pedri wrote. “The lawsuit will allege that in recent years these steps have not been adequately taken, and today the Luzerne County community is paying the price.”
Many who became addicted to prescription pills have turned to heroin, in part because heightened enforcement efforts have reduced access to the pills.
Litigation is warranted, Pedri said, to recoup increased costs for addiction treatment, education, law enforcement and other additional burdens stemming from the epidemic, he said.
“The county has been hit hard by the opioid abuse epidemic,” Pedri said.

Check back later for updates.

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Mora County Sues Over Opioid Epidemic

Sep 22, 2017 | KUNM

By Ed Williams

The opioid epidemic has racked up enormous costs for local governments in New Mexico, as cities and counties struggle to pay for medical care, law enforcement and treatment services for people dealing with addiction.
In recent years a growing number of local governments have been taking opioid manufacturers and distributors to court over those costs—including Mora County northeast of Santa Fe.
Mora County’s struggle with the opioid epidemic is, for the most part, the same story you’ll find across New Mexico.
Dr. Joshua Leiderman, who works at Mora Valley Community Clinic, has seen the epidemic's impact first hand. "This is enormous, and has been unaddressed for a very long time. If you look across the community almost no family is untouched," Leiderman said.
Only 4,500 people live in Mora County, but the overdose death rates here are almost double the state average.
"I think all of us should be appalled that you come to outlying areas of a poor state like New Mexico, where we don’t have high speed internet, the schools are in horrible disrepair," Leiderman said. "And yet two outfits seem to have no trouble with logistics here, and that is big pharma delivering narcotics and illegal narcotics making their way up here."
There are no detox or treatment centers here, and Leiderman is the only doctor in the county licensed to prescribe suboxone, a drug that can treat opioid addiction.
That shortage helps explain why fighting the opioid epidemic here has been so hard—and why the county has decided to sue some of the country’s biggest drug companies to try and get relief. Law enforcement, social services and behavioral health programs are stretched so thin trying to deal with the epidemic that Mora County Commissioner Paula Garcia said local government just can’t keep up.
"This structure here is supposed to be our county complex, and until that’s finished we’re operating out of those trailers," Garcia said, pointing to a half-finished building on the town of Mora's main street.
"So we were doing some shuffling with our office space, and the behavioral health office had to be closed temporarily."
Mora is a beautiful county, but median income here is under $24,000. It’s rural, and jobs are hard to find. Garcia says getting by here is not easy for a lot of people.
"I think fundamentally there’s a great need for mental health services in these areas. When you start piling on addiction on top of just a fundamental need, it puts us in a crisis mode," she said.
And according to the County Commission, part of the blame lies with companies that manufacture and distribute opioid painkillers.
In a major lawsuit filed in district court, Mora County alleges that those companies used deceptive marketing practices to promote addictive prescription drugs, downplayed the risks, and left taxpayers and county government on the hook to clean up the mess. It’s asking a judge to award the county damages that Mora can use to fund treatment and prevention programs.
Mora County attorney Michael Aragon said it’s an ambitious case, to put it mildly.
"When you’re taking on pharmaceutical companies, distributors, doctors—this is no small undertaking," Aragon said, adding that even though this case might seem like a long-shot, the county has hired some big outside law firms that have brought similar suits in other states.
"I don’t think the pharmaceutical companies are just going to roll over and say ‘Yes, mea culpa, here’s a check.' That’s obviously not going to happen. This litigation is going to take years," Aragon said.
John Parker, a representative with the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, said that while he couldn't comment on this specific litigation, cases like this are not productive ways to address the epidemic.
Parker said distribution companies are working to curb abuse, trying to work with local governments and improving oversight of addictive pain meds.
"As an industry, I think we feel that these lawsuits are a distraction," he said. "It’s a difficult challenge when you’re basically reacting to the demand that’s out there. We continue to enhance our tracking of these transactions, our data sharing with the DEA."
Pharmaceutical companies KUNM contacted for this story had similar responses—that they are working to prevent addiction and doing their best to stop the opioid epidemic.
But that’s not enough for Mora County. Commissioner Paula Garcia said this lawsuit is about nothing less than the survival of the community.
"We’re a small community," she said. "In order to thrive, in order to continue as a people, as a community with an identity, as a place, we need people to continue living here. Even losing one person hurts. It hurts all of us, because it’s that lost potential."
Since Mora County filed suit, Bernalillo County and the state of New Mexico have also announced their own suits against drug companies for their role in the opioid epidemic.

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Tenn. lead coalition seeks documents from opioid manufacturers, distributors

Sep 22, 2017 | Claiborne Progress

By Staff

Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III announced Tuesday a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general seeks documents and information from manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids as part of multistate investigations into the nationwide opioid epidemic. This information will enable the attorneys general to evaluate whether manufacturers and distributors engaged in unlawful practices in the marketing, sale, and distribution of opioids. Tennessee is leading the group of 41 attorneys general participating in the multistate investigations.
“The opioid crisis impacts all of us, and is a threat to families in every community in Tennessee and across the country,” Slatery said. “We will use all resources available to identify and hold accountable those parties responsible. There is too much at stake not to attack this problem from all sides.”
The attorneys general served investigative subpoenas for documents and information, also known as Civil Investigative Demands, on Endo, Janssen, Teva/Cephalon, Allergan, and their related entities, as well as a supplemental Civil Investigative Demand on Purdue Pharma.
Likewise, the attorneys general sent information demand letters to opioid distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson requesting documents about their opioid distribution business.
The attorneys general are using these investigative tools to determine what role the opioid manufacturers and distributors may have played in creating or prolonging this epidemic and determine the appropriate course of action to help resolve this crisis.
Nationwide and in Tennessee, opioids — prescription and illicit — are the main driver of drug overdose deaths. According to the Tennessee Department of Health, 1,631 Tennesseans died from drug overdoses in 2016, the highest number of such deaths recorded in state history.

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AG Eric Schneiderman Launches Investigation Into Opioid Crisis

Sep 22, 2017 | WSHU

By Michelle Toussaint

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says that 41 state attorneys general have launched an investigation into manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioid drugs.
Schneiderman says the investigation will examine whether manufacturers misled doctors and patients about the addictive power of the drugs.
“We’re also seeking information on whether distributors neglected their legal obligation to flag suspicious orders to the DEA and if their employees were provided incentives in the form of bonuses for selling more dangerous addictive drugs.”
The attorneys general have served subpoenas to Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo International, Allergan, and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
They have also demanded documents from AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson.

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen says the unified investigation is a significant step in the response to the opioid crisis.

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Beshear hires law firms for opioid investigation

Sep 22, 2017 | Associated Press

By Adam Bean

Kentucky's Democratic attorney general says he has hired four law firms to investigate and potentially sue several makers and marketers of opioid-based painkillers that have spurred a wave addiction across Appalachia.
But Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's administration said Andy Beshear's announcement Friday was premature. Spokesman Glenn Waldrop said the Finance and Administration Cabinet has not approved the contract, and said Attorney General Andy Beshear's office did not follow the required approval process.
"At the end of the day, there is a chance this contract may not be approved," Waldrop said.
Deputy Attorney General J. Michael Brown said the lawsuits are "good for all Kentuckians and shouldn't be political," adding the attorney general's office "followed all procurement laws and made this announcement consistent with previous awards."
The team includes the firms of Morgan & Morgan, Motley Rice, the Lanier Law Firm and Ransdell Roach & Royse PLLC. Morgan & Morgan is based in Florida, but they have offices in Kentucky. Their attorneys include former Democratic Attorney General Greg Stumbo.
Ransdell Roach & Royse is based in Lexington. Its attorneys include John Roach, a former Kentucky Supreme Court justice who served on Bevin's transition team after he was elected governor.
Motley Rice is based in South Carolina while the Lanier firm is based in Houston.
"We look forward to working with this experienced team of local and national attorneys who have the resources and knowledge to help this office secure funds," Beshear said in a news release. "We need the best team to help us repair the harm caused by those who have played a role in Kentucky's opioid crisis."
Kentucky has one of the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the country. The state sued Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid-based painkiller Oxycontin, accusing it of lying to consumers about the addictive nature of the drug. The state settled the lawsuit in 2015 for $24 million.
Beshear took office in 2016. Before that, he worked for one of the law firms that defended Purdue Pharma, causing Republicans to raise questions about a conflict of interest. Beshear has said he was not an "active participant" on that case, but he might have answered some questions from his colleagues about it.

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Beshear hires Morgan & Morgan, three other law firms to go after pain pill industry

Sep 22, 2017 | Kentucky.com

By Daniel Desrochers

Attorney General Andy Beshear announced Friday that he will partner with four law firms to investigate and potentially sue drug manufacturers, distributors and retailers that contributed to Kentucky’s opioid abuse epidemic.
Of the four, three are from out of state and one is the Kentucky-based firm of former state Supreme Court Justice John Roach — Ransdell, Roach and Royse PLLC.
“We look forward to working with this experienced team of local and national attorneys who have the resources and knowledge to help this office secure funds,” Beshear said. “We need the best team to help us repair the harm caused by those who have played a role in Kentucky’s opioid crisis.”
So far, Behsear has only identified McKesson Corp., a California based pharmaceutical distributor, as a possible target, but in a June press conference, Beshear said he plans to file two to 10 lawsuits.
All three of the national law firms — Morgan & Morgan, Motley Rice and The Lanister Law Firm — have experience with consumer protection cases or direct experience in lawsuits against drug companies.
The Orlando-based Morgan & Morgan, which has multiple offices in Kentucky and advertises heavily in the state, represents cities and counties in West Virginia against McKesson and other drug wholesalers.
“There is not a more professional, committed and capable team than the one assembled for this matter,” said Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan. “We will use our significant, successful experience and subject matter expertise to deliver a result that both makes the commonwealth whole and deters future violators from similar conduct moving forward. This is no longer David versus Goliath, but Goliath versus Goliath.”
State tax dollars will not pay for the cost of litigation. Instead, the law firms will get a portion of any verdict or settlement.
This won’t be Kentucky’s first lawsuit against drug companies over the opioid epidemic.
In 2007, former Attorney General Greg Stumbo, who later went on to work for Morgan & Morgan, filed a suit against Purdue Pharma, claiming deceptive marketing of OxyContin cost the state millions of dollars as it dealt with the resulting addiction crisis. The case was eventually settled by former Attorney General Jack Conway for $24 million in 2015, shortly before Beshear took office.

Recently, Republicans in Frankfort have criticized the settlement, saying it was too low and that Conway settled to prevent Beshear’s potential conflicts of interest with the drug company from coming to light. Beshear was previously an attorney with Stites and Harbison, which helped represent Purdue Pharma. Beshear has refused to identify the clients he represented as a private attorney, though he said he received no income from the Purdue Pharma settlement.

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Ky. AG Hires Motley Rice, Others In Opioid Fight

Sep 22, 2017 | Law 360

By Rachel Graf

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear said Friday his office has hired the law firms Morgan & Morgan, Motley Rice LLC, The Lanier Law Firm and Ransdell Roach & Royse PLLC to assist with a nationwide investigation and potential litigation over drugmakers’ role in the opioid crisis.
Attorneys general throughout the U.S. launched a joint investigation in June into how drugmakers might have contributed to the country’s opioid epidemic by illegal marketing or distribution, and Beshear subsequently issued a public request for proposals for legal services to help with the investigation and other lawsuits he intends to file. The agreement with the law firms ensures the state’s tax dollars won’t pay for the costs of any litigation, Beshear said.

“We look forward to working with this experienced team of local and national attorneys who have the resources and knowledge to help this office secure funds,” Beshear said in a statement. “We need the best team to help us repair the harm caused by those who have played a role in Kentucky’s opioid crisis.”

The AGs said in June the probe will focus on whether drugmakers’ marketing and sales tactics have prolonged an epidemic that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates killed more than 33,000 people in 2015. The bipartisan group, comprised of attorneys general from many states, will use resources including subpoenas for documents and testimony during its investigation.

Beshear separately announced later that month that his office intends to file “multiple lawsuits” over the role drugmakers might have played in furthering the epidemic.

Beshear’s office said it received bids from at least 53 firms to assist with the investigation and potential litigation. They chose Morgan & Morgan and Motley Rice, which have collectively won billions from pharmaceutical companies, The Lanier Law Firm, which has notched multiple billion-dollar jury verdicts against drugmakers, and Lexington, Ky.-based Ransdell Roach & Royse, according to a statement.

“We will use our significant, successful experience and subject matter expertise to deliver a result that both makes the commonwealth whole and deters future violators from similar conduct moving forward,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said in a statement. “This is no longer David versus Goliath, but Goliath versus Goliath.”

The attorneys will be paid with a portion of any verdict or settlement, rather than with state tax dollars.

Attorneys general in Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri and West Virginia have issued similar requests for proposals seeking assistance with litigation, Beshear said.

Beshear has also launched Kentucky’s first program for the safe at-home disposal of opioid treatments, and joined dozens of other state attorneys general to urge health insurers to promote alternate forms of pain management.

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Kansas investigating opioid manufacturers, distributors

Sep 24, 2017 | Cherokee Advocate

By Staff

Kansas is part of multi-state investigations of companies that manufacture and distribute prescription opioid drugs, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced on Sept. 19.
Schmidt said his office is one of 41 state attorneys general participating in the joint investigations. This week, the investigating offices escalated the investigations by subpoenaing or otherwise demanding information and documents from both manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioid drugs. The first of the investigations began last year.
“Today (Sept. 19) I am taking the unusual step of announcing investigations that are ongoing,” said Schmidt, who noted that the ordinary practice of his office is to neither confirm nor deny whether an investigation exists. “Because of the unique and multi-faceted nature of prescription opioid misuse, the heightened public scrutiny and policy discussions surrounding it, the decisions by several other state attorneys general to discuss publicly their separate individual enforcement actions, the decision by our multi-state working group to publicly confirm our investigation, and the reality that public awareness of this problem is an important component in addressing it, I have concluded it is in the public interest to confirm that Kansas has been and remains part of this broad-based, bipartisan, coordinated investigation.”
Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates opioid overdoses kill 91 Americans every day. According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, pharmaceutical opioids are a leading cause of drug poisoning deaths in Kansas. The CDC says the number of opioid prescriptions has quadrupled since 1999, despite Americans reporting a steady amount of pain.
“By working together with the vast majority of other states, we can help ensure these investigations are thorough, focused and properly coordinated,” Schmidt said. “As with any similar investigation, we will methodically determine what evidence is available and follow wherever the evidence leads. If the evidence shows illegal conduct, we will take appropriate enforcement action.”
Schmidt said he would not discuss the specific companies that are targets of the multi-state investigations at this time nor would he characterize the status of the investigations or what they have found to date.
In a related action, Schmidt announced yesterday he is among the leaders of a bipartisan group of 37 attorneys general who are asking insurance companies to alter their payment practices to reduce the incentive for doctors to prescribe opioids for pain relief. The over-prescription of opioid drugs is a significant contributing factor in their misuse. For eight years, Kansas law enforcement has participated twice yearly in the prescription Drug Take-Back initiative, which encourages people to clean out medicine cabinets and bring unwanted or unneeded prescriptions, including opioids, to drop-off sites for safe destruction. To date, that program alone has collected and safely destroyed nearly 59 tons of excess medications in Kansas, and some law enforcement agencies and pharmacies have begun offering secure drop-off sites year around.
Schmidt also noted that Kansas last year filed suit against the manufacturer of the drug Suboxone, which is used to counteract the effects of opioid overdoses. In that lawsuit, which is ongoing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Kansas and the other plaintiffs allege that the defendants took anticompetitive action to keep generic competitors off the market.
“The overall public health harm caused by prescription opioid misuse requires far more than a law enforcement response,” Schmidt said. “But enforcement is an important component, and we are focused on doing our part.”

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Sen. Sparks to represent pharmaceutical companies in class action opioid lawsuit

Sep 23, 2017 | Norman Transcript

By Mack Burke

State Sen. John Sparks, D-Norman, is lining up to defend a group of pharmaceutical companies against state legal action, but he won’t make his arguments at the Capitol.
Sparks, a defense attorney with the firm Odom, Sparks and Jones, is part of a legal team representing Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc. and Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., which are among more than a dozen drug companies the state is suing for alleged fraudulent marketing.
Sparks’ involvement has raised questions about the possibility of a conflict of interest. Senior partner Ben Odom said it isn’t an issue, precisely because Sparks isn’t representing the state.
“The thing that’s prohibited here is if John [Sparks] had been an attorney for the state,” Odom said. “You can’t draw two checks from the state.
“The reason for that prohibition, the part about why you don’t want to have somebody drawing two checks, is then somebody says, ‘Oh! Go sue somebody in my district and then hire me to be the lawyer for the state there.’ See, that would be a problem. But we’re the opposite of that.”
Odom said the state is often involved in suits and proceedings, so it’s not an uncommon position for legislators in the legal field.
“There are many types of cases where the state of Oklahoma can become a party to the lawsuit,” he said. “For example, any time the district attorney files a case, it’s the state of Oklahoma vs. [defendant]. That’s the style of the case, but it’s very clear and obvious that members of the legislature can and have for decades represented people on opposite sides of cases from the state of Oklahoma.
“Those people are entitled to a fair day in court and fair representation, and we don’t think that that poses a conflict.”
Gina Hendryx, general counsel for the Oklahoma Bar Association, said the defendants could file a motion to disqualify Sparks, but the result of such a motion would be a question of fact for the trial court judge, in this case Judge Thad Balkman.
“If someone were to try to pose a direct conflict, and I’m not going to get into whatever hypothetical that might be in term’s of John’s legislative work, he can always abstain from voting or be excused from the process,” Odom said. “I think John is an extremely ethical person. I think that’s his reputation in Norman and I don’t think, at the end of the day, there’s anything there on this.”
Despite public concerns over the case, nobody from the Attorney General’s office was willing to comment on the possibility of a conflict of interest with Sparks arguing against the state.
Odom said the firm is regarding it as a business matter, and as senior partner, he — not Sparks — should be the one to speak on the issue.
“I let John [Sparks] speak for the senator stuff and I speak for the law firm,” he said.
• The case: Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter filed the class action lawsuit in July and called it the beginning of a fight to “hold these companies accountable, slow the opioid crisis gripping the state and build a healthier Oklahoma.”
Hunter alleged in the petition that the companies abused power and resources by overselling opioids to Oklahomans while underselling addiction risks.
“[The companies] wanted to increase their opioid sales, and increase they did. By 2009, Oxycontin retail sales reached $3 billion,” the suit read. “By 2015, the number of Oklahoma drug overdose deaths had reached 823, with the number of prescription drug overdose deaths greater than the number of overdose deaths from alcohol and all illegal drugs combined.
“Deceptive marking campaigns and the resulting opioid abuse and addiction epidemic caused, and continues to cause, the state of Oklahoma, its businesses, communities and citizens to bear enormous social and ecumenic costs including increased health care, criminal justice and lost work productivity expenses.”
The American Academy of Pain Medicine also was named in the suit, which alleges the parties violated the Oklahoma Medicaid False Claims Act, Oklahoma Medicaid Program Integrity Act and Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act.
Some of the companies named in the suit have issued statements in their defense.
“[Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.] recognizes opioid abuse is a serious public health issue that must be addressed,” Janssen spokesperson Jessica Castles Smith said in July. “At the same time, we firmly believe Janssen has acted responsibly and in the best interests of patients and physicians with regard to these medicines, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label.”
According to an Associated Press report, the drug companies are seeking a protective order to prevent the attorney general’s office from gathering information from their companies through the discovery process until after the court rules on a request to dismiss the lawsuit.
The state is seeking compensation for damages, costs and punitive damages.

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Opioid investigations taking page from tobacco settlement

Sep 24, 2017 | The Intelligencer

By Chistopher Ullery

As investigations target major drug producers for their alleged roles in the nation's opioid abuse crisis, at least one expert says a 20-year-old settlement with tobacco companies could add perspective to the legal battles to come.
Starting in the mid-1990s, authorities in 46 states began filing lawsuits against major tobacco firms, arguing they knew their products were addictive and unsafe, and thus holding them responsible for health care costs incurred by the states to treat tobacco customers. Phillip Morris Inc., R.J. Reynolds, Brown and Williamson and Lorillard agreed to pay a minimum of $206 billion over the first 25 years of the agreement.
Scott Burris, professor of law and public health at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, said 41 state attorneys general now investigating pharmaceutical companies and distributors and their role in the opioid abuse epidemic are essentially looking for evidence to support a similar argument: that opioid producers downplayed the dangers of their products.
“It makes sense, given plenty of evidence that (pharmaceutical) companies were marketing the hell out of these drugs, that it warrants an investigation,” Burris said.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told reporters Tuesday at Upper Dublin High School that the companies were being investigated to find any internal documents that might prove the companies knowingly misrepresented the addictiveness or danger of opioid painkillers.
“If they are infecting Pennsylvania with these poisons in an irresponsible, unethical or unlawful way, we’re going to hold them accountable,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro identified the companies currently under investigation as manufacturers Endo International, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and its U.S. subsidiary, Cephalon Inc., Allergan Inc. and Purdue Pharma, as well as distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson.
AmerisourceBergen did not respond to requests from this news organization for comment, but the other companies identified by Shapiro said they were cooperating with the investigation. Some said they had already created initiatives to help curb opioid abuse.
“McKesson agrees that the opioid epidemic is a national public health crisis and plans to cooperate fully with the investigation,” the company said in a statement.
“In 2015, McKesson initiated the creation of a task force of McKesson experts, including clinicians, to further study the opioid abuse and its challenges,” the release states, adding a paper published from that task force included policy recommendations on prescribing and dispensing drugs to curb the opioid epidemic.
Cardinal Health released a statement saying it has worked with federal and state agencies — as well as nonprofit organizations and pharmacy schools — over the past decade to address the opioid epidemic.
“We have long supported the state and federal efforts to fight the opioid epidemic and believe more can and should be done to strengthen initiatives that aim to stem the crisis,” the company said.
A spokesperson for Allergan Inc. also said the company supported the investigation, but added the company’s two opioid products were acquired through “legacy acquisitions” of other drug manufacturing companies.
“Allergen’s two branded opioid products — Norco and Kadian — account for less that .08 percent of all opioid products prescribed in 2016 in the U.S.,” the company said.
An email from a spokesperson for Endo International said the company supported efforts to prevent opioid misuse, but that it does not comment “on current litigation or investigations.”
Although 41 states, including New Jersey, were identified by Shapiro's office as part of the collaborative investigation, some of the states not named in the current investigation have already filed suits against opioid manufacturers earlier this year.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced May 31 that his office was suing Purdue, Teva, Janssen, Endo and Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. for misleading the public on the possible hazards of opioids.
"Each defendant knew that its misrepresentations of the risks and benefits of opioids were not supported by or were directly contrary to the scientific evidence," Ohio court documents state.
DeWine's suit accuses opioid producers of "borrowing a page from Big Tobacco's playbook," and alleging the companies used third parties to raise funding and influence doctors, or "key opinion leaders," and patient advocacy groups to support the use of opioids in pain management.
A spokesperson for DeWine's office said the suit will seek monetary damages for medical and legal costs the state has incurred while handling the opioid epidemic, but a specific dollar amount has not been made at this time.
Several other states, counties and municipalities have also filed suits against pharmaceutical companies asking for damages from related to opioids.
In Pennsylvania, Bensalem officials are also suing the same companies named in the 41-state investigation as well as "other companies and individuals whose unlawful acts caused and contributed to the opioid crisis," an August news release from the township said.
Delaware County officials also announced a lawsuit against 11 opioid producers "and their consulting physicians," in a news release on Thursday, making the county the first in the state to file its own suit against the companies.
The companies involved in the suit include companies connected to Endo, Purdue, Teva and its Cephalon Inc. subsidiary, as well as several doctors.
"We will fight this national epidemic of senseless death and destruction with civil litigation," Delaware County District Attorney John J. Whelan said in the statement.
Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said Friday his office has reached out to Whelan's office to discuss the "process and procedures" of possibly filing such a lawsuit.
Weintraub added he has reached out to Whelan in matters related to opioids before, crediting him as inspiration to equip local police departments in Bucks County with Narcan, an anti-overdose medication.
As far as what authorities hope to find in the 41-state investigation, Burris added that, if any incriminating evidence is found, the state attorneys general will likely then seek punitive damages to cover the medical and legal costs the state and federal government has incurred in fighting the opioid epidemic.
With the tobacco and opioid investigations sharing several parallels already, Burris added he fears the public health outcome of the two cases may mirror one another as well: People will still use opioids long after the case is settled.
“I think we have to be afraid that the opioid epidemic will go the way of the tobacco epidemic, which is to say that 20 years from now we’ll still have people using these drugs,” Burris said, adding there are many factors beyond a company’s advertising that can lead to opioid addiction.

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The opioid wash cycle: Pharma cos., gov't repeat a lethal dance (OPINION)

Sep 25, 2017 | The Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph N. DiStefano

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his counterparts in 40 states said last week that it’s time to look at corporate America’s role in painkiller abuse. About 13 Pennsylvanians died from drug overdoses each day last year, up from nine a day in 2015. That’s more than twice as many as died from road wrecks and guns combined. Most of these victims, he pointed out, started on powerful, legally prescribed pain pills — theirs, or someone else’s — made and marketed by big American drugmakers.
So what are they going to do about it? Shapiro said the AGs are probing eight large drugmakers and sellers, including four big area employers: Endo Pharmaceuticals with U.S. headquarters in Malvern, AmerisourceBergen of Chesterbrook, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen division, and Teva’s Malvern-based Cephalon unit. He promised “action” of some kind “if the law was broken.”
What happens next will seem familiar if recent crusades against tobacco moguls, drugmakers, and mortgage financiers are any measure: If the firms market drugs beyond their intended uses, causing harm, the government lawyers will push for civil cash settlements, and people who weren’t in the room when bad decisions were made — shareholders — will pay a big chunk. Departed bosses won’t face criminal charges. Firms will say they have changed their ways while planning to launch similar products. And then — rinse, repeat — the pattern happens again.
Endo has been through a version of this cycle before:
In 1950 the company rolled out Percodan, a pill version of opium-based oxycodone, with aspirin. In 1959 Endo started selling the opiate Numorphan — a.k.a. oxymorphone — including suppositories for “moderate to severe pain” for operating-room patients, such as pregnant women in labor.
Percodan fast became popular, not just for those facing surgery, but for less specific pains and anxiety. In 1963, the California Attorney General’s Office blamed Percodan for the state’s growing drug-addiction problem. Elvis Presley and death-cult leader Jim Jones were later among its reported abusers. In 1970, Percodan’s main ingredient was listed under the new federal Controlled Substances Act under Schedule II, with “high potential for abuse,” making it tougher to prescribe.
That year the owners sold Endo to the nation’s top chemical maker, DuPont Co., which had big plans for pain drugs, and hoped to develop addiction treatments. Endo soon won FDA approval for Percocet, which is oxycodone with acetaminophen, the pain-killer in Tylenol. Like Percodan, Percocet was popular and attracted abuse.
Endo’s Numorphan, euphoric and highly addictive, became a popular heroin alternative for abusers, who called the pills “blues.” The National Institute on Drug Abuse named Numorphan a “widely abused” drug in 1974. In 1982, DuPont took Numorphan instant-release pills off the market, citing “commercial reasons.” According to an FDA history, the company acted following “anecdotal reports of abuse by injection.”
By 1994, DuPont and Merck reorganized Endo Laboratories LLC to expand sales of Percocet and other painkillers. Endo chief Carol Ammon told DuPont bosses the pain business would grow faster separated from the chemical giant. She and her lieutenants raised $227 million on Wall Street and spun the company off in 1997. The FDA soon approved Percocet in a wider range of doses; Endo wrapped the pills in new teal labels; Percocet sales quintupled to over $200 million in 2003.
Endo also asked the FDA to allow it to start selling oxymorphone again. Instead of Numorphan, it would be marketed as Opana, with the pill version Opana ER (for Extended Release). Purdue Pharmaceuticals, developer of the popular and often-abused rival OxyContin, sued to block what it said was a too-similar product.
In 2005, Ammon retired from Endo after collecting more than $200 million from sales of Endo stock options.
In 2006, Endo settled with Purdue and won FDA approval for Opana. Ammon’s successor, David Lankau, touted the born-again drug as Endo’s first internally developed pharmaceutical and called it a better choice than morphine (or its own Percocet) for many patients with low-back, arthritis, or cancer pain. (Asked for comment, Ammon had Endo issue a statement that she has been out of the company for years and had no comment.
Lankau didn’t respond to messages left at his consultancy.)
Endo hired 220 new salespeople to push Opana ER and targeted 67,000 U.S. doctors, and not just pain specialists. Lankau told investors the new salespeople would have to visit nonspecialists “four, five, or six” times to get them to prescribe Opana. The doctors weren’t made to take special training, though Endo warned the drugs were subject to abuse.
Sales took off: from $20 million in 2007 to a peak of $384 million — 15 percent of Endo’s total sales — in 2013. The company used profits to add new products. Endo shares peaked in 2015 at $95. The firm was briefly worth over $20 billion.
Then Opana crashed, and so did Endo. Starting in 2014, Opana sales fell sharply each year. Endo stock has fallen to around $8.50 a share, leaving a market value of $1.9 billion, less than 10 percent of its peak.
What went wrong? For one thing, like old Numorphan, Opana was popular with addicts, who broke up the slow-release pills for a fast high. “Opana is the big thing right now in pharmaceutical drug abuse,” the DEA’s Philadelphia intelligence office reported in May 2011, adding that the “blues” that Endo made back in hippie times had reappeared in Delaware, Philadelphia, and New York and were fast replacing OxyContin as abusers’ favored heroin alternative. Philadelphia reported its first four Opana deaths in early 2011. The New York attorney general sued and collected $200,000 from Endo in 2016 as a penalty for not emphasizing Opana’s addictive properties.
Endo reformulated Opana ER into a “no-crush” version. It asked the FDA to certify the new Opana as harder to abuse than old Opana, which would also make it tougher for generic firms to make cheaper versions. The FDA declined. Opana went to the new version anyway, in 2012.
According to later FDA reports, drug abusers told them the new Opana ER was harder to powder and snort, but easier to process for needle injection. One user survey found that nearly 30 percent of Opana users were abusing the drug in 2015, almost twice the rate of OxyContin or Fentanyl.
Abusers, after dissolving the pills with solvents, stayed high by shooting up multiple times and sharing needles. Opana ER was associated with a blood-infection cluster in Tennessee and an HIV outbreak in Indiana (abuse of the original Opana had been associated with a hepatitis C outbreak in New York).
Endo explained falling Opana sales to investors by blaming generic competitors, “supply disruption” at a pill plant, and tighter FDA opioid guidelines, which started depressing painkiller sales in general.
Federal prosecutors across the U.S. have sued doctors for prescribing Opana in excess of safety guidelines. In 2015, Endo said it was cooperating with opioid-abuse investigators from Chicago and New York state, and federal prosecutors in Philadelphia. Missouri and other states and counties hard hit by opioid addiction have since sued Endo, saying the company failed to take steps to keep the drug from abusers. Investors allege Endo failed to warn of the “inherent risk of abuse” in its reformulated Opana ER, in a suit brought by Los Angeles lawyer Brian Lundin last week.
In March, FDA urged Endo to stop selling Opana ER. Endo said it was “disappointed,” but agreed, effective Sept. 1. Endo also laid off 375 salespeople whose products included Opana and other pain brands.
Spokeswoman Heather Zoumas Lubeski declined to discuss Endo’s history or current litigation. She said CEO Paul Campanelli and his team have “a new strategic vision” focused less on pain and more on generic and disease-specific drugs.
Noting that the FDA cited “unintended” abuse of Opana ER, she said Endo still believes in the “safety, efficacy and favorable risk benefit of that product when used as intended.”

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Brock Smith joins opioid epidemic task force

Sep 22, 2017 | Curry Health Network

By Scott Graves

Oregon Rep. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, has been appointed by Gov. Kate Brown to the Opioid Epidemic Task Force.
An average of three Oregonians die every week from prescription opioid overdose, and many more become addicted.
Smith will join House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson and Sens. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward and Jeff Kruse as the four Oregon state legislators to work with a task force that includes doctors, healthcare workers and prevention specialists.
“I’m honored to have been chosen to serve on the Opioid Epidemic Task Force with my skilled legislative colleagues and other professionals to address this critical issue facing my constituents and those across Oregon,” said Smith. “I have seen first-hand the lives and families destroyed by opioid abuse, and appreciate my fellow stakeholders’ efforts as we move forward with solutions.”
Recent studies by the Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division have concluded that Oregon has one of the highest rates of prescription opioid misuse in the nation.
More drug poisoning deaths involve prescription opioids than any other type of drug, including alcohol, methamphetamines, heroin and cocaine.
House Bill 3440, which passed unanimously in both legislative chambers during the 2017 session, assists in helping address issues regarding opioid abuse.
“Across Oregon, the opioid crisis is tearing families apart,” Brown said. “It will take the efforts of all branches of government, state agencies, advocates and families to prevent Oregonians from becoming future victims of opioid misuse.”
The governor convened a task force of individuals to build consensus on further recommendations to address this critical issue for Oregon families.
The first meeting of the task force was held during Legislative Days in Salem on Sept. 19. The task force will meet again in October.
Multi-state effort
Earlier this month, Oregon Attorney General Rosenblum announced that Oregon is on the leadership team of a multi-state investigation of manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids.
As part of the investigations, a bi-partisan group of 41 attorneys general are seeking documents and information from various manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids. This information will enable them to evaluate whether manufacturers and distributors have engaged in unlawful practices in the marketing, sales and distribution of opioids.
“Every day, more Oregon communities are struggling with opioid abuse and related deaths. This makes me more determined than ever to hold these companies accountable for their role in this epidemic,” Rosenblum said. “The information we are gathering now will help us determine if these manufacturers or distributors have engaged in unlawful marketing or sales practices. Working together with 40 other AG offices will allow us to both conserve resources and get to the bottom of this national tragedy.”
The attorney general served investigative subpoenas for documents and information on Endo, Janssen, Teva/Cephalon, Allergan and their related entities, as well as a supplemental subpoena on Purdue Pharma.
The attorney general also sent demand letters to opioid distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson, requesting documents about their opioid distribution business.
In 2015, Oregon was the first state to reach a settlement with Insys, the company that manufactures the schedule II opioid called Subsys. Shortly afterward, several other states followed Oregon’s lead. Previously, Oregon DOJ had issued CIDs against Purdue Pharma in 2012, and Endo in 2016. These two ongoing investigations have now merged into the multistate investigation.
Rosenblum commended the work of Assistant Attorney General David Hart and his investigative team for their investigations related to pharmaceutical fraud.

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Sessions opioid speech keeps focus squarely on users and doctors, lets drugmakers off easy

Sep 22, 2017 | Think Progress

By Alan Pyke

“Today we are facing the deadliest drug crisis in American history,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday in West Virginia, the latest stop on his ongoing tour of places hit hardest by opioid addiction and overdose deaths.
“Talk to the police about it, and they’ll tell you many people became addicted almost the first time they tried these powerful and addictive drugs,” Sessions said.
But despite acknowledging the severity of the opioid crisis today, the rest of Sessions speech ignored the role of the corporations that have sold these pills over the years.
Thursday’s speech hit most of the same notes Sessions has struck in other appearances to discuss opioid addiction, treatment, and law enforcement. He echoed Nancy Reagan’s call to “just say no” and offered tepid praise for treatment programs. He even used the fact that treatment too often fails to save addicts’ lives as a springboard to focus on enforcement.
Sessions mentioned drug manufacturers only once — a shout-out to former pharma industry lobbyist turned West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey for suing some of the companies he used to represent — then launched into several paragraphs of detailed criticism of doctors, dealers, and gangs.
Sessions’ speech focused on users and ignored the other end of the prescription drug pipeline. Like other law enforcement figures, Sessions rarely discusses the drug approval processes that allowed companies like Purdue Pharmaceuticals to make misleading claims about their drugs, or the legal logics that keep the Sackler family that owns Purdue safe from lawsuits.
The crisis Sessions lamented Thursday began with the introduction of OxyContin in 1996. The drug’s ubiquity and high price have helped the Sacklers to amass a $14 billion fortune over the years.
OxyContin caught on because it was marketed as a wonder-drug that could wipe out extreme pain for 12 hours off of a single dose. “Unlike short-acting pain medications, which must be taken every 3 to 6 hours,” Purdue wrote in a 1996 press release, “OxyContin Tablets are taken every 12 hours, providing smooth and sustained pain control all day and all night.”
It’s by now well known that Purdue’s marketing overpromised, and the drug underdelivered. “The drug wears off hours early in many people,” the Los Angeles Times reported in a groundbreaking investigation of the company last year, “and when it doesn’t last, patients can experience excruciating symptoms of withdrawal, including an intense craving for the drug.”
Most damningly, the Times’ expose found, Purdue knew its marketing was a lie. Its own drug trials had shown as much, the Times found, yet the company “held fast to the claim of 12-hour relief, in part to protect its revenue… Without that, it offers little advantage over less expensive painkillers.”
After the drug hit the market, more real-world evidence of OxyContin’s shortcomings began piling up atop the internal trials evidence. Purdue simply recommended upping a patient’s dose – not increasing the frequency with which a patient takes the same concentration of the heroin-lite medication, but dumping larger volumes of it into the bloodstream at the same “smooth and sustained” 12-hour clip.
Heroin and its chemical relatives have an especially pernicious effect on human brain chemistry. Unlike cannabis – Sessions’ personal bugaboo – the withdrawal of opioids from a neurology that’s become dependent upon them is violent and debilitating.
OxyContin isn’t the main murder weapon in the 60,000-plus overdose deaths in 2016 that Sessions cited on Thursday. It is more often heroin, increasingly cut with the even-more-dangerous pharmaceutical invention fentanyl.
But putting a civilian with a pain problem on OxyContin, telling them they’re going to feel fine for 12 hours, then telling them not to take any more even though their pain has resurfaced just a few hours later? That amounts to leaving patients stuck between the pill bottle warnings on one side and the lure of cheaper, harder hits of the same brain chemicals from some street dealer. It’s “the perfect recipe for addiction,” as Dr. Theodore Cicero told the Times.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the United States from prescription drug overdoses since OxyContin went on the market.
Purdue, meanwhile, has racked up billions in profits – thanks in part to an aggressive internal sales culture built on telling doctors the answer to problems with OxyContin was almost always more OxyContin, the Times found — and stymied every serious attempt to claw back some of that money to the victims of the epidemic.
The lawsuits started piling up fast, within the drug’s first six years on the market. But the corporate-friendly eccentricities of American liability law kept Purdue’s ill-gotten profits out of reach. Most the more than 100 lawsuits over OxyContin dosing deceptions have been dismissed because of “a legal doctrine which shields drug companies from liability when their products are prescribed by trained physicians.”
Where courtroom shields were at risk of cracking, Purdue wrote checks to make cases go away. West Virginia itself won one of the largest settlements Purdue’s ever paid, a $10 million handshake deal that the company only offered after its lawyer – future Attorney General Eric Holder – failed to convince a judge to dismiss the case before trial.
Trial records are public. Taking the fight further would mean exposing Purdue’s secrets to every other lawyer in the world, a class-action nightmare that could threaten the Sackler family’s Oxy fortune. Out came the checkbook.
To this day, the Sacklers have retained their titanic fortune. Even as official attention turns squarely to opioid users, prescribers, and distributors, the people who actually created the drugs Sessions and other government officials decry can apparently rest easy.

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Lawsuits target industry pushers of opioids

Sep 25, 2017 | El Dorado News Times

By Shea Wilson

The opioid crisis dominates American media headlines. The report from Wednesday’s Washington Post warned that “America’s opioid problem is so bad it’s cutting into U.S. life expectancy.” The gist of the story: While data from the National Vital Statistics Systems Mortality file showed the average American life expectancy grew overall from the years 2000 to 2015, the rise in opioid-related deaths whittled away two and a half months off of the improvement.
The leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. is drug overdose. The American Society of Addiction Medicine reports that there were 52,404 lethal drug overdoses in 2015. Opioid addiction related to prescription pain relievers resulted in 20,101 of those deaths. Another 12,990 overdose deaths were connected to heroin in 2015, ASAM says.
Of the 20.5 million Americans age 12 and older who had a substance use disorder in 2015, 2 million had a substance use disorder involving prescription pain relievers and 591,000 had a substance use disorder involving heroin, according to data in the ASAM’s Opioid Addiction 2016 Facts & Figures. ASAM also reported that 23 percent of those who use heroin develop opioid addiction.
Opioids are a class of drugs that include the illegal heroin as well as prescription pain relievers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, fentanyl and others.
Now that drug abuse and its related deaths have moved off the inner city crack corners to the quaint subdivisions and small towns of America, we have a crisis that demands care not criminalization. Interesting, isn’t it, how attitudes change when the problem is in the bedroom upstairs or the house next door?
The rate of heroin use among white adults increased by 114 percent between 2004 and 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 2000 to 2015 more than half a million people died from drug overdoses and the majority (six out of 10) involved an opioid, CDC reports. Ninety-one – 91—Americans die every day from prescription opioids or heroin.
It is easy to see how this happened. If you have a condition that involves chronic pain, there’s a physician and a pill that will help manage your symptoms – and that’s not a bad thing. But, the undiscerning have created a problem – and an epidemic.
A recent article in The Economist reported that between 1991 and 2011, the number of opioid prescriptions supplied by American pharmacies increased from 76 million to 219 million. “As the number of pain pills being doled out by doctors increased, so did their potency,” The Economist reported. “In 2002 one in six users took a pill more powerful than morphine. By 2012 it was one in three.”
The state of Ohio took action back in May by suing five major drug manufacturers for their role in the opioid epidemic. In the lawsuit, the state’s Attorney General Mike DeWine alleges the companies “helped unleash a health care crisis that has had far-reaching financial, social, and deadly consequences in the state of Ohio.”
The suit accuses the pharmaceutical companies of engaging “in fraudulent marketing regarding the risks and benefits of prescription opioids which fueled Ohio’s epidemic.” The state believes there is evidence to show that the companies being sued misled doctors about the dangers of pain medications, and that they misled physicians for increased sales and profits. A similar lawsuit was filed earlier this year in Mississippi.
It will be interesting to see the outcomes of these lawsuits. In the meantime, take a look at the website for the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.Org) and see how much the pharmaceutical industry donates to your federal officials: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=H04.
Sadly, there’s no magic pill for this public pain. When an industry pays out $30-$50 million, depending on the year, to political campaigns — and lobbyists for specific companies contribute millions more — you know it’s an investment in getting their way.

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Paterson hires law firm to sue drug manufacturers and distributors

Sep 22, 2017 | Paterson Times

By Staff

The city has retained a law firm to take on drug companies that it alleges are responsible for the raging drug epidemic in the streets of Paterson, announced mayor Jose “Joey” Torres on Friday afternoon.
Connecticut-based Scott & Scott has been retained to represent the city in litigation against pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributors. Domenick Stampone, the city’s chief attorney, said the firm will only charge Paterson taxpayers if it is successful in litigation.
“The retainer agreement with Scott+Scott entitles the firm to fees only if the City wins or settles this litigation,” said Stampone. “This lawsuit can only benefit the City of Paterson without costing its taxpayers anything.”
The heroin epidemic has hit Paterson hard. The city has been described as the regional hub for cheap heroin that attracts buyers from throughout the Northeast. Police and firefighters have had to deal with large number of calls for service involving drug overdose and crime that is tied to the drug trade.
Paterson is seeking to recoup the “crippling cost that opioid addiction has caused the local government.” It has strained the city’s social and human services budget. It has had to substantially increase the budget of its police, fire, and other first responders.
“The drug epidemic is a national crisis, its ravages have grown in intensity in our City, causing damage inflicted in our most precious resources, the people,” said Torres. “Holding accountable those pharmaceutical companies whose practices have contributed to the loss of lives and is on a daily basis draining our City’s depleted coffers will go a long way in making the ‘Silk City’ whole again.”
Police officers, firefighters, and EMTs in the city have been trained in the use of Narcan to counter overdoses.
The city joined dozens of government entities suing drug companies for marketing painkillers by greatly downplaying risk of addiction while overstating treatment benefits.
Scott & Scott is a nationally-recognized law firm that has recovered billions for its clients through lawsuits. The firm has enlisted the help of Saddle Brook-based Goldsmith & Goldsmith which was part of a team that represented New Jersey in the 1998 tobacco litigation.

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Suing drug makers won’t solve our crisis (Letter to the Editor)

Sep 25, 2017 | Asheville Citizen Times

By Steven A. Mannina

I find it hard to believe that Buncombe County would consider trying to recover the expenses that stem from the opioid epidemic by pursuing the drug makers. Perhaps they should also try to recover the expenses that stem from prostitution by pursuing the mattress manufacturers and the expenses associated with gun violence by pursuing the arms manufacturers. I believe that both of these have been tried unsuccessfully many times before.
The real origin of this problem lies with the addicts themselves, but it’s not politically correct to hold anyone responsible for their own actions today. I’m surprised that we don’t offer them “Certificates of Participation” the way they do in school. I guess the problem lies in the fact that the addicts have nothing left to recover or they wouldn’t be causing a major drain on the county’s resources; in other words, they have empty pockets.
The medical practitioners who routinely prescribe these opioid painkillers are the other source of this problem. Pursuing the doctors would not be a popular course of action even though they have deeper pockets than the addicts that they have created.
The drug makers have the deepest pockets and represent the greatest potential for a financial windfall.
I do believe that this course of action will result in failure and another expense for the county. The only winners will be the attorneys. The losers will be the taxpayers.

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HHS Secretary Tom Price and Kellyanne Conway: “All hands needed on deck to turn the tide against the opioid crisis” (PRESS RELEASE)

Sep 25, 2017 | The White House

By Tom Price & Kellyanne Conway

What do the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia have in common with the mountains of West Virginia, the former mill towns of southern New Hampshire and the banks of the Tennessee River?
They are all, like so many other corners of America, struggling with our nation’s crisis of opioid addiction and overdose. We’ve visited each of these places as part of a national listening tour, to understand how local communities and leaders are responding to the opioids challenge we face.
Our most recent stop was outside Philadelphia, at Exton’s Mirmont Treatment Center, one of the state’s largest substance abuse treatment facilities. We were there to meet with the center’s employees, community members, faith leaders, and first responders who have been inspired, sometimes by tragedies or addictions close to home, to engage on this crisis.
Pennsylvania has been hit hard by opioid addiction. More than 3,000 Pennsylvanians had their lives cut short by a drug overdose in 2015, up 20 percent from the year before.
These are not just statistics; they are our families, our friends, our neighbors. One of the people we heard from there is a successful real estate developer who lost his 28-year-old son to an overdose and has now become committed to helping others avoid the same tragedy. One first responder we met handled 150 drug overdose calls in 2016 – nearly one every other day.
President Trump and his administration believe that heroes like these Pennsylvanians, those on the front lines, are going to turn the tide against this crisis.
That perspective informs the work of President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, which President Trump formed within months of taking office, and the work of cabinet departments such as the Department of Health and Human Services.
At a gathering of substance abuse advocates and activists from across the country in April, HHS unveiled a new strategy for fighting this crisis, focused on the unique capabilities the federal government can bring to the fight. It has five pillars: improving access to prevention, treatment, and recovery services like those provided by Mirmont; targeting the availability and distribution of life-saving overdose-reversing drugs; strengthening our understanding of the epidemic through better data; supporting cutting-edge research into pain and addiction; and advancing the practice of pain management to give Americans with physical pain a better option than opioids.
We are moving full steam ahead to advance this strategy every day, in conjunction with work in other parts of the Trump Administration and our state and local partners. On September 15, HHS announced $144 million in grants to 58 different entities across the country, focused on helping them to respond to the crisis in their own communities. Just the day before that, HHS disbursed more than $200 million in grants to community health centers for substance abuse and mental health treatment and prevention, including 32 health centers in Pennsylvania. All told, HHS will provide more than $800 million in funding to fight the opioid crisis this year, and more will come from across the Trump Administration.
Facing persistently high rates of opioid addiction, the growing challenge of very potent, synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, and rising rates of overdoses in most places, it is easy to get discouraged by the scale of this challenge.
But then you meet a mother who has lost a child to overdose, a young person who is now on the road to recovery, a first responder who has revived the same neighbor from multiple overdoses, or a doctor who has treated dozens of babies born physically dependent on opioids. You remember why we’re fighting, and why we have to win.
Our boss, President Trump, had many of those conversations as he traveled the country over the last couple of years. It has fueled in him a deep passion for and commitment to fighting the scourge of addiction.
This is an administration-wide effort to reduce the demand for drugs through treatment, awareness, and outreach and to aggressively interrupt the supply channels in the drug trade, both abroad and at home. By talking openly and honestly about this crisis, we hope to remove the stigma associated with asking for help, and to increase collaboration and communication in battling a scourge that literally knows no bounds. This is not someone else’s child, someone else’s co-worker, someone else’s challenge. No state has been spared; no demographic or geographic group is untouched. The President is leading the way, and urging each of us to do our part – because the opioid epidemic is everybody’s business.

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Broadcast Media Coverage

WDRB in the Morning

Sep 24, 2017 | WRDB (Fox)

By Louisville, KY

Rough Transcript: kentucky's attorney general announces a contract to investigate opioid manufacturers, but the governor said the announcement was premature. andy basheer. said she have hired law firms to investigate. but there is no final contract. the attorney general's office did not file the approval process and said it may not be approved.

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ABC27 News Saturday

Sep 25, 2017 | WHTM (ABC)

By Harrisburg, PA

Rough Transcript: dauphin county plans to sue drug companies over the opioid cris. last year a record 85 people died in the county of opioid related deaths.. commissioners say pharmaceutical firms that aggressively market the addictive painkillers... should pay a price. delaware county has already filed a similar lawsuit. commissioners will provide more details about their suit at a press conference on monday. janel: president trump's travel ban expires tomorrow. janel: but his administration is planning on announcing a new set of travel restrictions to replace the travel ban on six muslim-majority countries. janel: the new restrictions could be implemented as early as this weekend. the travel ban sparked protests and lawsuits.

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WBRE Eyewitness News

Sep 23, 2017 | WBRE (NBC)

By Wilkes Barre, PA

Rough Transcript: luzerne county ofcials say they a taking their fight against the opioid epidemic to the courtroom. county leaders tell us they plan to file a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies and related businesses that make prescription drugs. in 20-16 alone -- 140 county residents died from opioid overdoses. the lawsuitwould be similar to one filed against tobacco companies years ago. luzernecounty manager dave pedri"the big tobacco lawsuit has been a guiding light for these types of lawsuits. but this has its own set of probs, and it will be an uphill road anit will be a long battle, but luzerne county is ready for the fight."((laur)) luzerne county council must first appove the lawsuit plan.

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CBS 21 News at 6

Sep 22, 2017 | WHP (CBS)

By Harrisburg, PA

Rough Transcript: it's the growing numbers of people struck by the opioid crisis and costs associated with treatment that dauphin county commissioner jeff haste says is lighting the fire beneath the war on opioids. >> there are few families not somehow effected by this. either directly or somehow removed. when it's at that level, it's a cris. >> reporter: now dauphin county leaders are bringing in a philadelphia based law form to file the lawsuitagainst companies who use aggressive 6:02 PMmarketing tactics. demanding they cover costs associated with addiction prevention and treatment. people who need counseling and recovery services increased by 400%. demand by 400% in the last four years. >> it started in the 1980s and this is what happens when we don't pay enough attention to what is going on. it's out of control. >> reporter: having witnessed the epidemic first-hand, harrisburg police chief tom carter says the battle starts at the dinner table. >> everything starts at home. educate the -- the big role -- plays a big role in this. >> this is larger than the number of deaths due to traffic accidents. >> reporter: he says it's time to treat opioids with the same seriousness as gun violence. >> we'll beat it. i'm confident we will beat it. >> reporter: the commissioners -- commissioners are expeced to 6:03 PMrelease more information come monday. and what exactly pharmaceutical companies they'll be targeting in the lawsuit. that will happen here in harrisburg where they'll be joined by the district attorney and the president of the state alcohol and drug services providers. and again that's going to be in harrisburg on monday morning. reporting live unharrisburg, ashley honea wrshgs cbs 21 news. >>> and this comes on the heels of one of the nation's largest pharmacies making it harder to get opioids. cbs announced it will limit opioid prescriptions in an attempt to fight the epidemic. the drug management division at cvs will limit opioid supplies to seven days for new patients. >> pharmacists will ask doctors to revise prescriptions when they appear to offer more pills. cvs will also cap daily dosages. the farm saes giant ceo says patients often bring prescriptions for 30 or 50 pills when they don't need that many. almost 90 million people use cvs to fill prescriptions. >>> cbs 21 will continue to follow the fight against the opioid epidemic.

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