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Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report 10/9/17

Ohio Suit

Ohio Sues Big Pharma Over Increase In Opioid-Related Deaths
Oct 7, 2017 | PBS Newshour
By Melanie Saltzman

Watch clip here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/ohio-sues-big-pharma-increase-opioid-related-deaths/

Newark Suit

Newark, NJ, Files Suit Against Opioid Manufacturers
Oct 8, 2017 | The Root
By Michael Harriot

I have an uncle who will tell anyone willing to listen about his history of drug use. He will unabashedly talk about using cocaine in every form. He lists barbiturates, hallucinogens and every imaginable mind-altering concoction in a history of drug use that dates to the ’70s.
Newark Sues 11 Opioid Makers, ‘Behind The Scenes Drug Suppliers’
Oct 6, 2017 | Newark Patch (NJ)
By Eric Kiefer

Newark is going after some of its biggest alleged drug dealers. But they don’t operate in alleyways; they work from office buildings, according to city attorneys.
City Of Newark Sues Opioid Manufacturers For False And Deceptive Advertising
Oct 7, 2017 | TechTimes
By Athena CHain

The mayor of Newark in New Jersey announced that the city is suing several pharmaceutical companies for deceptive opioid marketing and advertising. These companies supposedly caused public nuisance and thrived at the expense of the city.

Other Coverage

Indianapolis mayor announces plans for city opioid lawsuit
Oct 6, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review
By Brian Zimmerman

Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett at a Thursday press conference said the city of Indianapolis plans to sue drugmakers and distributors for their role the city's opioid crisis, according to IndyStar.
Selectmen sign on for opioid lawsuit
Oct 7, 2017 | Citizen's News (CT)
By Luke Marshall

Beacon Falls has become the latest town to join Waterbury in a lawsuit against manufacturers of prescription opioid painkillers.
Brick Expected To File Lawsuit Against Opioid Manufacturers
Oct 6, 2017 | Brick Patch (NJ)
By Karen Wall

Brick Township officials are expected to approve an agreement Tuesday for the township to file a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture opioid painkillers, joining other municipalities across the country that are seeking compensation for the toll the opioid crisis has taken on their communities.
Madison County State’s Attorney considering suit against opioid industry
Oct 6, 2017 | The Alton Telegraph
By Scott Cousins

Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons brought up the possibility of considering taking legal action against pharmaceutical companies over their production and marketing of opioids.
Drug manufacturers added to opioid lawsuit
Oct 7, 2017 | The Review (NY)
By Tom Giambroni

Drug manufacturers are being added to the lawsuit filed on behalf of Columbiana County commissioners against drug distributors.
Coalition launched to determine if drug makers, distributors broke laws amid opioid epidemic
Oct 6, 2017 | Click 2 Houston (TX)
By Staff

Texas and 40 other states launched a coalition in June to determine if drug makers and distributors broke any laws amid the opioid epidemic.
States Sue Opioid Manufacturers for Fraud Over Overdoses
Oct 9, 2017 | Triple Pundit
By Leon Kaye

The federal government may not yet have a plan to combat the nationwide opioid crisis, but many state attorneys general are doing their part by pushing back against drug companies. And AGs from red and blue states alike are hitting opioid makers where it hurts the most: their pocketbooks.
MDL May Be On The Horizon In Opioid Litigation
Oct 6, 2017 | Law 360
By Emily Field

The recent wave of opioid litigation has yet to hit its peak, as new suits filed by counties and municipalities against drug manufacturers and other companies in the supply chain roll in on an almost daily basis, and it is increasingly likely that a number of federal cases will be consolidated, attorneys say.
Judge in Ohio could decide national opioid cases
Oct 7, 2017 | Associated Press
By Staff

Plaintiffs suing drugmakers and distributors in dozens of cases tied to the opioid crisis are seeking to have the lawsuits consolidated and overseen by one federal judge in Ohio.
The heroes and villains of New Jersey’s opioid crisis
Oct 7, 2017 | NJ 101.5 (NJ)
By Jay Lassiter

New Jersey’s heroin crisis did not create itself. Big Pharma, greedy lobbyists, and dimwitted policy makers created the perfect conditions for addiction to take hold and to thrive.
Drug abusers, not manufacturers, to blame (Letter to the Editor)
Oct 7, 2017 | New Haven Register (CT)
By Mike Santacroce

The forum article written by Valerie Calistro puts the blame for the current opioid epidemic on pharmaceutical companies.
A national emergency on opioid addiction (OPINION)
Oct 7, 2017 | Philadelphia Tribune
By The New York Times Staff

Opioid addiction has developed such a powerful grip on Americans that some scientists have blamed it for lowering our life expectancy.

Broadcast Media Coverage

PBS NewsHour Weekend
Oct 7, 2017 | PBS
By National Programming

Video Link 1: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947346?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505 Video Link 2: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947347?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
RTV6: Indianapolis This Week
Oct 8, 2017 | WRTV (ABC)
By Indianapolis, IN

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947348?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
FOX23 News This Morning
Oct 8, 2017 | KOKI (News)
By Tulsa, OK

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947350?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
News 12 New Jersey
Oct 8, 2017 | N12NJ (News 12)
By New York, NY

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947352?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
WMBC News
Oct 8, 2017 | WMNC (WMBC)
By New York, NY

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947353?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505

Ohio Suit

Ohio Sues Big Pharma Over Increase In Opioid-Related Deaths

Oct 7, 2017 | PBS Newshour

By Melanie Saltzman

CHRIS BURY: In Ohio, the climbing costs of the opioid epidemic are reflected in the shattered lives of people like Ashley Taylor. For the 26-year-old single mother of three, the road to addiction began in high school with pain pills often stolen from parents of friends. By 16, she was snorting, then shooting, heroin, because it was cheaper and easy to buy in the small southern Ohio town of Jackson, where she lives.
CHRIS BURY: When did you know that you were addicted?
ASHLEY TAYLOR: I’d say probably within a couple of weeks of doing them. Because you know, your body starts hurting and aching really bad, like you’re just so sick that you have to have it.
CHRIS BURY: Ashley says she’s been clean and sober for just over a year, but the costs to her — and to Ohio– are still piling up. To begin, she lost custody of her three children after police raided her home on suspicion she was selling drugs.
ASHLEY TAYLOR: They kicked in my doors, and my kids were home at the time. And there was multiple other people in my house. And they just kind of threw their needles on the floor. And so of course I was the one that got arrested, and they took my kids at the exact same time.
CHRIS BURY: Ashley was charged with child endangerment and spent two weeks in jail. But in a deal with Jackson county’s drug court — set up to handle a deluge of opioid cases — ashley’s guilty plea is on hold while she follows judge mark musick’s orders on treatment over two years.
The costs of compliance are high: every day, Ashley gets a ride to her aunt’s house to visit her three kids. Ohio’s child protective services — or CPS — placed Ashley’s 7-year-old daughter and two boys, 4 and 6, in the custody of Ashley’s aunt. CPS pays her 474 dollars a month to help raise the kids.
Foster care for children placed because of their parents’ drug addiction — mainly from opioids — costs Ohio 45 million dollars a year.
Ashley’s youngest child was born drug dependent; treatment for such children costs Ohio another 130 million dollars a year.
Counselor: And they’re still a hundred percent sober and supportive of your sobriety right?
Ashley: Yeah, very, actually.
CHRIS BURY: Every week, Ashley must attend multiple counseling sessions — and get tested for drugs. And for eight months, Ashley needed shots of the anti-addiction drug, Vivitrol. They cost more than $1,000 per injection. Overall, such medications — and the counseling — cost ohio medicaid 216 million dollars last year.
And that doesn’t include the costs of Ohio’s opioid epidemic to its hospitals, prisons and police…Or the rising death count.
In 2016, 4,050 people in ohio died of accidental overdoses, chiefly painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid.
That was a 33-percent increase over 2015…And a 642-percent increase since 2000.
MIKE DEWINE: Think about this. We’re losing 10 people, we think, every single day in the state of Ohio.
CHRIS BURY: Those staggering losses and rising costs led Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine — a former U.S. Senator now running for Governor — to sue five major producers of opioid painkillers.
DEWINE: “…companies that we conclude spent millions of dollars to deceptively market their drugs…”
CHRIS BURY: Ohio’s lawsuit levels an explosive charge: that the pharmaceutical companies deliberately misled doctors and the public to downplay the addictive qualities — and hyped the benefits — of painkillers that earn them billions of dollars a year.
MIKE DEWINE: The evidence, we think, is overwhelming. We think it shows that what they did, they did on purpose. They told physicians and spent millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, to get this message across to physicians that these opioids were not very addictive.
CHRIS BURY: The companies sued include purdue pharma, which makes the widely prescribed painkiller, oxycontin… johnson and johnson, teva pharmaceuticals, endo health solutions, and allergan.
The pharmaceutical companies filed a joint motion to dismiss the lawsuit. None agreed to our requests to be interviewed.
Purdue pharma told “newshour weekend”: “…While we vigorously deny the allegations, we share the attorney general’s concerns about the opioid crisis and we are committed to working collaboratively to find solutions…”
In a statement to us, Jannsen, a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary, noted its painkiller pills “…Are FDA-approved and carry fda-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label….”
CHRIS BURY: Is that going to be difficult for you to convince a jury that this was harmful, when the FDA was very clear in its approval?
MIKE DEWINE: Merely because the FDA approves something does not mean that a pharmaceutical company cannot mislead people. And I think the evidence is clearly going to show they did consistently over a number of decades.
CHRIS BURY: Attorney Jodi Avergun is a former chief of staff for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Now she represents drug companies, though she’s not involved in this lawsuit.
JODI AVERGUN: The people that pharmaceutical reps market to are doctors; they’re trained physicians. And an opioid is an addictive drug. So it’s hard for me to believe that there is a naïve population of doctors out there to whom pharmaceutical sales representatives were able to lie and mislead to the extent that’s alleged in the lawsuit.
CHRIS BURY: As evidence, the lawsuit cites pamphlets and educational guides…And claims companies paid sales reps and doctors millions of dollars to promote opioids and play down the risks of addiction. This video was produced by purdue pharma.
Purdue Pharma video: And so these drugs, which I repeat, are our strongest pain medications should be used much more than they are for patients in pain.
CHRIS BURY: Dr. Dona alba treats addicts in jackson ohio. She was a family physician for 20 years — and says pharma company representatives frequently pushed opioids.
DONA ALBA: They often came to the office, they pitched the product as the best possible
analgesic for your patients, irrespective of the source of their pain, whether it was acute
or whether it was chronic.
CHRIS BURY: And what kind of risk did they talk about or warn about?
DONA ALBA: None.
CHRIS BURY: And what about the risk of addiction?
DONA ALBA: None. And they said these products did not cause people to become
addicted. So they were safe to use.
CHRIS BURY: In its lawsuit, Ohio also accuses big pharma of “taking a page” from big tobacco in the way they minimized risks of addiction.
Now, Ohio has hired Michael Moore, the former Mississippi Attorney General who helped win a 246 billion dollar settlement with tobacco companies in the 1990s.
MICHAEL MOORE: It’s just like the tobacco case. You have folks who made billions of dollars by lying to the American public and causing a huge public nuisance and in this case killing 60,000 people a year. Who should pay for that? The taxpayers or the companies who made the billions of dollars? In my view, the companies ought to pay for it.
JODI AVERGUN: The critical difference here is that this case is involving medicine; it’s involving something that people in the health care business are making and distributing. Tobacco was a product that people enjoyed and smoked, and there was no claim that it was good for you. So I think that that’s a very huge difference.
CHRIS BURY STANDUP: Ohio’s attorney general filed the lawsuit here in Chillicothe, in the southern part of the state bordering the Appalachian Mountains. In this county of 77,000 people, the lawsuit claims, more than 1.6 million opioid pills were prescribed in 2015 alone. That’s the equivalent of 21 pills for every man, woman and child here in Ross County.
Bud Lytle: Well, we got him into treatment, and he doesn’t have a ride today.
CHRIS BURY: Chillicothe police detective bud lytle leads a team that tries to get overdose survivors into treatment. In this county- fatal overdoses from prescription painkillers have now been overtaken by those from heroin and fentanyl. But Lytle sees a strong tie.
CHRIS BURY: Do you see a direct connection from the opioids to heroin and fentanyl?
BUD LYTLE: 70 to 80 percent of the individuals that I deal with, their addictions started with a legitimate prescription from a doctor, and them taking it the way the doctor had originally prescribed until they became addicted. And eventually what happens is the pills are much more expensive than heroin, much more expensive than fentanyl to buy on the street.
Bud Lytle: Hey, Logan what’s up, man?
CHRIS BURY: Lytle’s entire job is to battle the opioid epidemic. Every wednesday, his team visits the homes of everyone in the county who overdosed the week before. During our visit, he checked up on 21-year-old logan mcgraw at his mother’s home. He had overdosed six times on heroin and fentanyl over the last month.
Logan: I was at my house and my mom found me unconscious
CHRIS BURY: Detective lytle takes logan to a treatment center. His bill will cost Ohio more than $5,000 a month. Overall, the state claims, fatal overdoses, medical expenses, and lost work cost Ohioans 4 billion dollars a year.
CHRIS BURY: A cascade of opioids lawsuits against big pharma — by Ohio and nine other states — raises the odds of a settlement according to Michael Moore. He’d like to see any money recovered used to help addicts and prevent opioid use.
MICHAEL MOORE: A prevention and education program will cost at least $100 million a year, similar to what we did in the tobacco cases to reduce youth smoking.// (16:01) We also hope and learned a lesson from tobacco that we can get court orders that money has to go into treatment; money has to go into prevention.
CHRIS BURY: Ashley taylor agrees. After years of not working because of her addiction and arrests, she now has a part time job at this fast food outlet. She’s saving to rent a 3-bedroom home big enough to fit her three kids. If she does that — and stays clean — she can get her children back in legal custody, again.
ASHLEY TAYLOR: I graduated a parenting class. I give them all my drug screens. So as long as I’m clean and I graduated the parenting and get a house for them, then they can come home with me.
CHRIS BURY: You’re looking forward to that?
ASHLEY TAYLOR: Yes, I am. I’m so excited.

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Newark Suit

Newark, NJ, Files Suit Against Opioid Manufacturers

Oct 8, 2017 | The Root

By Michael Harriot

I have an uncle who will tell anyone willing to listen about his history of drug use. He will unabashedly talk about using cocaine in every form. He lists barbiturates, hallucinogens and every imaginable mind-altering concoction in a history of drug use that dates to the ’70s.
“But those Percs and Oxies,” he told me, describing the street names for Percocet and OxyContin, two of the more popular drugs on the legal opioid market. “That shit is the devil.”
On Friday, Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras J. Baraka announced that the city has filed a lawsuit against manufacturers of prescription opioid medicines for deceptive advertising and other claims. The suit targets manufacturers of drugs that have fueled an opioid epidemic that has crippled cities across the country and left many people addicted to the class of drugs.
“The impact of prescription opioids on Newark has been catastrophic,” said Baraka. “Every aspect of our city has felt the severe ramifications of the opioid epidemic, not just the substantial financial impact, including all the services we provide to residents, including public health, public assistance, law enforcement, emergency care, and services for families and children.”
The lawsuit, filed with the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Essex County, names Purdue Pharma, L.P.; Purdue Pharma Inc.; the Purdue Frederick Co.; Teva Pharmaceuticals USA; Cephalon Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceutical Inc.; Endo Health Solutions Inc.; and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.
It alleges that these companies “unfairly and deceptively marketed and falsely advertised opioids, created a public nuisance, committed fraud and were thereby unjustly enriched at the expense of the city.”
Although numerous peer-reviewed studies have shown opioids to be addictive, the heart of the lawsuit claims that drug companies have trained sales representatives for years to minimize or totally discount the addictive properties of the medicines, marketing them as nonaddictive remedies for pain relief. The complaint alleges:
To convince prescribers and patients that opioids are safe, Defendants deceptively represented that the risk of abuse and addiction is modest and manageable and limited to illegitimate patients, not those with genuine pain...
These depictions misleadingly reassured doctors that, in the absence of those extreme signs, they need not worry that their patients are abusing or addicted to opioids...
Defendants deceptively advised doctors to ignore signs of addiction as the product of an unfounded condition it called pseudoaddiction. Pseudoaddiction was a concept invented to convey the idea that signs of addiction, including shopping for doctors willing to newly write or refill prescriptions for opioids or seeking early refills, actually reflected undertreated pain that should be addressed with more opioids—the medical equivalent of fighting fire by adding fuel.
Aside from fueling the public health crisis, the underground prescription drug market and the trend of “doctor shopping” (where patients use sometimes illegal means to get doctors and pain-management clinics to write multiple prescriptions), the opioid epidemic has created a subsidiary market for heroin.
OxyContin became known as “hillbilly heroin” because, medical professionals say, heroin triggers the same receptors as prescription opioids for a fraction of the price. The National Institute for Drug Abuse studied young heroin users in 2012 and found that “86 percent had used opioid pain relievers nonmedically prior to using heroin, and their initiation into nonmedical use was characterized by three main sources of opioids: family, friends or personal prescriptions.” The report concluded that the incidence of heroin use was 19 times higher among people who used prescription opioids.
Newark’s lawsuit claims that most drug overdoses in the city are now due to opiods, forcing the municipality to arm officers and paramedics with Narcan, which reverses heroin and opioid overdoses, at the expense of taxpayers. Since 2014, the suit alleges, Narcan has been used more than 18,000 times.
Aside from the expense of first responders and health professionals, Newark claims that the companies that manufacture the pills increased the cost of drug investigations, incarceration and drug treatment. Even neonatal care has been affected, since the number of babies born addicted to prescription drugs doubled between 2006 and 2013.
Killing babies to make a profit is an age-old concept used by American businesses, including the triangular slave trade, the National Rifle Association and the pharmaceutical industry. I would call it an evil concept from the depths of Hades, but hell is registered as a nonprofit.
Even the devil wouldn’t be that evil.

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Newark Sues 11 Opioid Makers, ‘Behind The Scenes Drug Suppliers’

Oct 6, 2017 | Newark Patch (NJ)

By Eric Kiefer

Newark is going after some of its biggest alleged drug dealers. But they don’t operate in alleyways; they work from office buildings, according to city attorneys.
A day after New Jersey state prosecutors announced that they were launching a lawsuit against Insys Therapeutics for its “greed-driven campaign” to increase the market share for its powerful opioid-fentanyl drug Subsys, Newark city officials announced a campaign of their own against almost a dozen opioid manufacturers, including the makers of OxyContin.
The city’s lawsuit alleges that the companies “unfairly and deceptively marketed and falsely advertised opioids, created a public nuisance, committed fraud and were unjustly enriched at the expense of the city.”
Named in the lawsuit are big pharma corporations such as Purdue Pharma L.P., Purdue Pharma Inc., the Purdue Frederick Company; Teva Pharmaceuticals USA; Cephalon Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceutical Inc.; Endo Health Solutions Inc., and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.
As a group, the above companies manufacture, market and sell prescription opioid pain medications such as OxyContin, Butrans, Hysingla ER, Actiq, Fentora, Opana/Opana ER, Percodan, Percocet, Zydone and Duragesic.
According to a Friday statement from officials, the city seeks to “hold the manufacturers financially accountable for the damage they have caused” and to force them to stop their “deceptive practices.”
City officials stated:“Until the mid-1990s, opioids were widely thought to be too addictive for use for chronic pain conditions, which would require long-term use of the drugs at increasingly high doses. For these conditions, the risks of addiction and other side effects outweighed any benefit from the drugs. For the last two decades, however, the suit claims that the defendants sought successfully to turn that consensus on its head, primarily by covering up the risk of addiction and overstating the benefits of using opioids long-term.”
The suit also claims that Purdue deceptively and unfairly failed to report to New Jersey authorities illicit or suspicious prescribing of its opioids, Newark officials stated.
Acting Corporation Counsel Kenyatta Stewart said that the city plans to “seek justice” on behalf of its citizens that suffer from opioid and heroin addiction.
“The pharmaceutical companies’ unethical practice of hiding behind the scene as the connection/supplier to local drug dealers unfairly targets these citizens,” Stewart charged.
The city is working with outside counsel Andrew J. D’Arcy of D’Arcy Johnson Day of Egg Harbor Township and Linda Singer, Elizabeth Smith, the Pennington Law Group, and David I. Ackerman of Motley Rice LLC.
“The impact of prescription opioids on Newark has been catastrophic,” Newark Mayor Baraka said. “As the largest city in New Jersey and due to the duty we have to our citizens, we know it is our responsibility to act and protect our residents from this urgent public health crisis. Every aspect of our city has felt the severe ramifications of the opioid epidemic, not just the substantial financial impact, including all the services we provide to residents, including public health, public assistance, law enforcement, emergency care and services for families and children.”
A spokesperson for one of the named companies, Purdue, issued a statement about the city’s lawsuit to NJ.com, saying that the company attempts to balance patient access to FDA-approved medicines while working collaboratively to solve the public health challenge of opioid addiction.
“Although our products account for approximately 2% of the total opioid prescriptions, as a company, we've distributed the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, developed the first FDA-approved opioid medication with abuse-deterrent properties and partner with law enforcement to ensure access to naloxone,” the spokesperson said.

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City Of Newark Sues Opioid Manufacturers For False And Deceptive Advertising

Oct 7, 2017 | TechTimes

By Athena CHain

The mayor of Newark in New Jersey announced that the city is suing several pharmaceutical companies for deceptive opioid marketing and advertising. These companies supposedly caused public nuisance and thrived at the expense of the city.Newark's Civil Lawsuit
On Oct. 5, Mayor Ras J. Baraka announced that the city has filed a civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of New Jersey against several opioid-manufacturing pharmaceutical companies. The lawsuit was filed after an investigation on pharmaceutical companies' marketing of prescription opioids.
The lawsuit describes opioids as narcotics, which possess properties similar to heroin and opium. As such, although they can effectively reduce feelings of pain, they can also induce euphoric highs that could eventually lead to addiction. It is because of this that use of the drug has been highly regulated and restricted.Deceptive Marketing And False Advertising
According to the lawsuit, when Purdue manufactured OxyContin during the mid-1990s, together with the other defending pharmaceutical companies, it changed the way people perceived opioids to expand their market and profits. They supposedly did so by describing how health care providers should place a higher importance on pain management. The effort led to the eventual widespread long-term use of opioids for pain management of chronic conditions such as arthritis, migraines, and back pain.
Through the years and as opioid prescriptions increased by 31 percent, the active ingredient in opioids, oxycodone, has doubled. The lawsuit further describes the companies' faults by stating how although in 2007 Purdue plead guilty for deceptive opioid marketing, they continue to spend millions of dollars in advertising while at the same time trivializing the risks of addiction.Public Nuisance And Unjust Enrichment
As a result, the city of Newark suffered greatly the consequences of opioid abuse and addiction. In fact, a majority of Newark's overdose deaths in 2017 are attributed to both illicit and prescription opioid use. What's more, the addiction has driven crime rates in Newark, so much so that first responders are often armed with Narcan, a nasal spray used as an emergency treatment for suspected opioid abuse. This, of course, comes at the city's expense.
Calling the opioid epidemic an urgent public health crisis, Mayor Baraka states his commitment to protect the citizens of Newark from its effects.
"The impact of prescription opioids on Newark has been catastrophic," says Mayor Baraka. "Every aspect of our city has felt the severe ramifications of the opioid epidemic, not just the substantial financial impact, including all the services we provide to residents, including public health, public assistance, law enforcement, emergency care and services for families and children."
As such, the city seeks to make the companies financially accountable for their actions and to force them to discontinue their practices, which have led to their rise in profits at the people's expense.

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Other Coverage

Indianapolis mayor announces plans for city opioid lawsuit

Oct 6, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review

By Brian Zimmerman

Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett at a Thursday press conference said the city of Indianapolis plans to sue drugmakers and distributors for their role the city's opioid crisis, according to IndyStar.
Indiana experienced 757 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016, up more than 250 deaths since 2015, according to state data.
"Opioids are killing Americans. Opioids are killing Hoosiers. Opioids are killing our neighbors right here throughout the city of Indianapolis," Mr. Hogsett said.
During the press conference, an attorney representing the city named three drugmakers — Purdue Pharma, Endo Pharacueticals and Teva Pharmacueticals — and three drug distributors — Cardinal Health, McKesson Corp. and AmerisourceBergen — as probable defends in the lawsuit.
The drugmakers and a representative for the drug distributors provided statements to IndyStar.
"We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis, and we are dedicated to being part of the solution," said Purdue Pharma. "We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense."
Endo said its shares the Food and Drug Administration's goal of "appropriately supporting the needs of patients with chronic pain while preventing misuse and diversion of opioid products."
Teva Pharmaceuticals said it's "committed to the appropriate use of opioid medicines and recognize[s] the critical public health issues impacting communities across the U.S. as a result of illegal drug use, as well as the misuse and abuse of opioids that are available legally by prescription."
John Parker, senior vice president of Healthcare Distribution Alliance, which represents the three distribution companies, told IndyStar, "We don't make medicines, market medicines, prescribe medicines or dispense them to consumers. Given our role, the idea that distributors are solely responsible for the number of opioid prescriptions written defies common sense and lacks understanding of how the pharmaceutical supply chain actually works and how it is regulated."

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Selectmen sign on for opioid lawsuit

Oct 7, 2017 | Citizen's News (CT)

By Luke Marshall

Beacon Falls has become the latest town to join Waterbury in a lawsuit against manufacturers of prescription opioid painkillers.
In the lawsuit, Waterbury alleges that drug makers engaged in a coordinated and sophisticated campaign to mask the risks of opioid medications, while exaggerating benefits to create massive profits. Among other tactics, drug makers pushed opioid use for more common ailments, including back pain, arthritis and headaches, according to the suit.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies, through an aggressive marketing campaign, sought to and did change long-standing medical practices that dictated opioids should be used short-term and for terminal illnesses. The promotion of opioids led directly to increased costs for patients, health care insurers, and the payers, such as the borough, the claim alleges.
Town officials have been reviewing whether to join the lawsuit, and the Board of Selectmen on Monday voted unanimously to do so.
In 2016, 917 people overdosed on drugs, mostly opioids, in Connecticut, according to the suit.
First Selectman Christopher Bielik said small communities, such as Beacon Falls, haven’t been spared.
“The fact is that we have experienced the actual impact of the opioid crisis on our front door. We have had instances where first responders have responded, have administered Narcan, have brought people back, have been unsuccessful in bringing people back. We have had fatalities in the town of Beacon Falls in the last year and a half that are directly attributed to the opioid crisis as it is,” Bielik said.
There is no cost to the town to join the lawsuit. Law firm Simmons Hanly Conroy, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Waterbury, will get one third of any monetary award the municipalities receive.
If the lawsuit doesn’t hold up in court, Town Attorney Fred Stanek told the board the pharmaceutical companies could bring a lawsuit against the municipalities.
“If it is determined this type of lawsuit is not viable, there is no legal basis for it, the plaintiffs could be sued by the defendants for bringing vexatious litigation,” said Stanek, adding that it’s unlikely to happen.
Selectman Michael Krenesky favored the lawsuit as long as the town didn’t see it as a way to make money.
“I think this is an action we need to participate in. But I want to make it clear that my decision to join this is not for the money. It is for the principle of it,” Krenesky said.
Bielik said the intent isn’t to cash in.
“The consideration of this motion is in no way intended to reap any kind of monetary windfall for the town of Beacon Falls,” Bielik said. “The intention is simply to become a part of this in order to solve a problem and bring attention to it much more than any potential monetary gain.”

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Brick Expected To File Lawsuit Against Opioid Manufacturers

Oct 6, 2017 | Brick Patch (NJ)

By Karen Wall

Brick Township officials are expected to approve an agreement Tuesday for the township to file a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture opioid painkillers, joining other municipalities across the country that are seeking compensation for the toll the opioid crisis has taken on their communities.
Brick Township Mayor John Ducey announced the plan to file suit Thursday in a news release.
The agreement the Township Council will be asked to approve Tuesday night will engage the national law firm of Motley Rice, LLC, to represent the township in the lawsuit.
Under the terms of the agreement, the law firm will not receive any payment from the township but will instead take a percentage of any recovery from the drug manufacturers, the news release said.
Motley Rice LLC is the same law firm Toms River agreed to hire in August to file a similar lawsuit. The law firm is representing the states of South Carolina, Alaska and New Hampshire, the city of Chicago, Albany County, New York, and Summit County, Ohio, all of which are battling epidemic levels of opioid and heroin abuse. Washington State joined the lawsuit effort in September. Santa Clara County in California filed the first complaint, in 2013.
Motley Rice attorneys gained recognition for their pioneering asbestos lawsuits, their work with states in the landmark litigation against Big Tobacco, and their representation of 9/11 families in the ongoing lawsuit against terrorist financiers.
“While we will continue our efforts to attack the heroin problem through treatment and aggressive law enforcement, we also will hold the manufacturers accountable for telling doctors and patients that opioids are not addictive. They know that’s not true.”
Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, paid $635 million in fines in 2007 after pleading guilty to charges of false marketing brought by the Department of Justice, a Forbes report said. The company also settled a lawsuit in 2015 with the state of Kentucky over “illegally misrepresented and/or concealed the highly addictive nature of OxyContin and encouraged doctors who weren’t trained in pain management to overprescribe the opioid pain reliever to Kentucky patients,” Forbes reported.
Ducey noted that drug overdoses in Ocean County have steadily increased; the Ocean County prosecutor's office says the number of overdose deaths rose from 69 in 2014 to 212 in 2016.
The number of overdose deaths so far in 2017 is 105 countywide as of the end of September, the prosecutor's office has said.
The decline in deaths is a direct result of the efforts on education, enforcement and rehabilitation, Ducey said.
The township police department was one of the first two in the county to offer the Blue HART (Heroin Addiction Recovery & Treatment) program, where addicts seeking help can go to the police station and, in most cases, be admitted into treatment.
The police department also has set up a drug enforcement unit to pursue dealers, while a ommunity policing unit educates children and the public about the dangers of opioid use, he said.
“We need to use every option at our disposal to fight this horrific battle," Ducey said. "I am pleased that
Motley Rice will bring its national legal expertise to our town, at no cost to our residents.”
“The council joins the mayor in this effort against the opioid manufacturers," Council President Arthur Halloran said. "These drugs have unfortunately destroyed many lives across our nation and right here in
Brick.”
“We will continue this fight against heroin and opioid drugs for as long as it takes,”
Ducey said. “This lawsuit is an important step in the effort to end this scourge.”

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Madison County State’s Attorney considering suit against opioid industry

Oct 6, 2017 | The Alton Telegraph

By Scott Cousins

Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons brought up the possibility of considering taking legal action against pharmaceutical companies over their production and marketing of opioids.
He said they planned to bring in an expert to discuss the county’s options.
“I think it’s an issue that could have a positive impact,” he said.
Part of the reason is the “extraordinary expenses” local municipalities and the county have in dealing with opioid overdose and addiction.
“That’s money our taxpayers have had to shell out because we’ve had an epidemic dumped on us,” he said.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Walters, R-Godfrey, cautioned that they need to hear both sides of the issue before making a decision.
If they move forward, Madison County would join a host of other governments taking action against pharmaceutical companies.
According to a July 4 article in the Washington Post, manufacturers and distributors of highly addictive painkillers are facing a “barrage” of lawsuits. Within the past year, the article said that at least 25 states, cities and counties have filed civil cases against the $13 billion per year opioid industry.
Ongoing budget issues dominated most of the rest of the meeting, as various department heads talked about specific issues.
Most of those issues revolved around the Madison County Jail and the ongoing issue of overcrowding.
While the Sheriff’s Department wants additional funding for jail personnel, both the State’s Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices want to add staff to move cases more quickly.
Public Defender John Rekowski noted his budget presentation “was fairly well received,” but noted that he’s “tried to read juries before,” and was not always successful.
State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons said one thing they want to consider is a special “team” of prosecutors and public defenders who would concentrate on incoming prisoners in order to move some of them out of the jail.
“We can’t operate at a crisis level on a sustained basis,” he said.
Capt. Eric Decker noted that two jail officers were recently injured and facing surgery while attempting to subdue an inmate earlier this week.
“Our people are wearing out, our people are getting hurt,” he said.
The committee also took action on several purchase requests, including:
• Approval of a graduate assistant position as part of the Madison County Adult Redeploy program. The program is a joint effort by the Probation Department and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The cost is $8,211.
• Approved renewal of a contract for the Sheriff’s Department’s AFIX fingerprinting system for $5,811.80.
• Approved purchasing 20 replacement computers for the Sheriff’s Department at a cost of $11,300.
All three must now go to the Finance Committee, then the full County Board for approval.

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Drug manufacturers added to opioid lawsuit

Oct 7, 2017 | The Review (NY)

By Tom Giambroni

Drug manufacturers are being added to the lawsuit filed on behalf of Columbiana County commissioners against drug distributors.
Commissioners on Wednesday adopted a resolution amending their lawsuit to include drug manufacturers as well as distributors, which was done on the advice of attorney John Lancione, whose Cleveland-area law firm is serving as the board’s local counsel in the federal class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of numerous counties in Ohio and adjoining states.
The lawsuit was filed against three major drug wholesalers responsible for distributing 85 percent of all prescription opioid painkillers to doctors and pharmacies. The lawsuit alleges these companies contributed to the “public health and safety crisis” created by the opioid problem “by refusing to abide by federal regulations specifically designed to prevent the diversion of prescription opioids into the illicit market.”
In doing so, these distributors dumped millions of prescription opiates into communities across the county.
Commissioner Mike Halleck said after the meeting they received an email on Tuesday from Lancione advising them to add prescription opiate manufacturers based on what occurred in July, when it was announced that a $35 million settlement had been reached between the U.S. Justice Department and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. The drug manufacturer was accused of failing to report large quantities of oxycodone pills that ended up being diverted to black markets in Florida.
After reviewing the allegations and the settlement, Halleck said the law firm concluded drug manufacturers contributed to the opioid crisis by violating federal reporting requirements and often working together with distributors.

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Coalition launched to determine if drug makers, distributors broke laws amid opioid epidemic

Oct 6, 2017 | Click 2 Houston (TX)

By Staff

Texas and 40 other states launched a coalition in June to determine if drug makers and distributors broke any laws amid the opioid epidemic.
In September, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxtonannounced subpoenas and additional requests had been served to eight companies that manufacture or distribute the highly-addictive painkillers. An investigation is underway and it's one that's now decades in the making.
Back in the '90s, a promotional video came out titled "I got my life back!" In the video, a doctor touts opioids as the best and strongest medications for pain. He endorses OxyContin, saying opioids don't have serious medical side effects.
Fellow physicians got on board, and patients looking for relief from pain began asking for that opioid by name.
"Taking it back to the '80s and '90s, it was a perfect storm where everybody was guilty, everybody had their hand in the cookie jar," pain management specialist Dr. David Kim said.
He said doctors wanted to help, drug companies wanted to sell product and even federal agencies were on board and mandated doctors treat pain more aggressively.
Opioids work by turning off pain receptors in the brain and there was some very early research suggesting addiction shouldn't be a concern.
"What we've done, literally, is done the largest experiment in human history on 300 million people and we've been doing it for 30 years, and now we have data and the data is not very pretty," Kim said.
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It's not just the doctors who have to be careful. The patients have to be careful, too. While they may not become addicted to the medications, leaving them stored unused in the home, or giving them to a loved one thinking it's going to help them could ultimately be harming them.
"We put them in the medicine cabinet. Those can be a real problem, whether it's teenage children or college-aged children who begin to experiment with medication," said Dr. Adam Bruggeman, who is with a San Antonio treatment center.
In spite of the risk, opioids are still the best option for some patients in pain and those with lifetime or terminal illnesses.
"As physicians, if we do decide to initiate opioids, we have to do our due diligence to protect society and our patients," Kim said.
Doctors are now advised to dispense fewer pills, choose the least potent or addictive medication to manage the pain and even play detective to determine if patients are abusing their prescriptions.
In some places, that means doctors run a patient's name through a database before prescribing narcotics and look up a patient's prescription history.
Bruggeman agrees physicians and drug companies both have played a role in the country's opioid epidemic, but now he says it's up to doctors and lawmakers to stop the pharmaceutical industry from influencing the practice of medicine.
"We really need to be smart about who we allow in our doors and how we make our decisions," Bruggeman said.
Since the launch of the multistate investigation into pharmaceutical companies, many companies turned down KPRC sister station WJXT's request for on-camera interviews.
In written statements related to the opioid crisis, Purdue Pharma says, "We share public officials' concerns about the opioid crisis and we are committed to working collaboratively to find solutions."
The Purdue spokesperson also said, "OxyContin accounts for less than 2% of the opioid analgesic prescription market nationally, but we are an industry leader in the development of abuse-deterrent technology, advocating for the use of prescription drug monitoring programs and supporting access to Naloxone -- all important components for combating the opioid crisis."
Jansenn Pharmaceuticals says, "We recognize opioid abuse is a serious public health issue."
Teva Pharmaceutical states it "is committed to the appropriate promotion and use of opioids. We have programs in place that educate prescribers, pharmacists and patients on the responsible and safe use of these products."
Last month, Attorney General Paxton and his counterparts served investigative subpoenas -- also known as Civil Investigative Demands (CID) -- on drugmakers Endo, Janssen, Teva/Cephalon, Allergan and their related entities, along with a supplemental CID on Purdue Pharma. Separately, the coalition sent information demand letters to opioid distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson.
"Protecting Texans is a top priority of my office. The goal of this phase of our investigation is to collect enough information so that the multi-state coalition can effectively evaluate whether manufacturers and distributors engaged in unlawful practices in the marketing, sale, and distribution of opioids," Paxton said. "We'll determine an appropriate course of action once it's determined what role these companies may have played in creating or prolonging the opioid crisis."

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States Sue Opioid Manufacturers for Fraud Over Overdoses

Oct 9, 2017 | Triple Pundit

By Leon Kaye

The federal government may not yet have a plan to combat the nationwide opioid crisis, but many state attorneys general are doing their part by pushing back against drug companies. And AGs from red and blue states alike are hitting opioid makers where it hurts the most: their pocketbooks.
Many drug companies ensnared in this scandal – and what are also tragedies for citizens who lose loved ones to opioid addiction – have responded with token programs in an effort to make amends, or to critics dodge responsibility, for their roles in the crisis. But those efforts, in the eyes of several AGs, are far from enough.
For example, Insys Therapeutics, which manufactures and markets an opiate, fentanyl, under the name Subsys, is now caught in the cross-hairs of several state top cops. Last week, New Jersey Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino, in filing a lawsuit against Insys, claimed that the company “engaged in a greed-driven campaign of consumer fraud and submission of false claims to health insurers” in a push to increase market share for Subsys. The litigation accuses Insys of wide array of abuses, including outrageous price hikes, the submission of false medical records to insurers and giving financial “kickbacks” to physicians.
On Friday in a public statement, Insys retorted to Porrino’s complaint that Subsys only represented 0.02 percent of opioid prescriptions in the U.S. during 2016, with sales ranking below the top 50 opioid manufacturers in the nation. The company also claimed that it has since come under new management and that 90 percent of its sales force has been replaced.
“It’s disingenuous to repeatedly demonize a company that has made a firm and sincere commitment and is taking all the necessary steps to conduct business according to high ethical standards,” an Insys spokesperson said. “It’s also unfair to the company’s current employees, most of whom are new to Insys and had no involvement in the past misdeeds.”
The problem with such a defense, however, is that while these companies have made huge profits across the U.S., states have been left with the expenses of hospitalizations, burdens on local law enforcement and lost productivity at companies. “Firm and sincere commitments” do not fund health care, reimburse lost wages or provide counseling for either those who have succumbed to addiction or for those who have lost family members and friends to opioid overdoses.
Insys has also been sued by the attorney general of its home state, Arizona. AG Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against the company in August, accusing the company of engaging in a “fraudulent marketing scheme.”
Meanwhile, Insys settled with Massachusetts AG Maura Healey last week. The company agreed to pay $500,000 in response to allegations that it illegally marketed Subsys with tactics including financial incentives that encouraged physicians to prescribe that drug, which is frequently described as 50-to-100 times stronger than morphine.
Other drug manufacturers can expect to see a long pipeline of litigation in the coming years. Purdue Pharma, the subject of a lengthy Los Angeles Times investigation last year, has been accused of engaging in a long, deceptive marketing campaign for OxyContin by Washington State AG Bob Ferguson. “Purdue conducted an uncontrolled experiment on the American public without any reliable clinical evidence that opioids are effective at treating chronic pain,” claimed Ferguson in announcing his state’s lawsuit last month.
New Hampshire, which supposedly was described as a “drug den” by President Trump earlier this year, is also taking on Purdue. The state’s AG office launched an investigation of the company in 2015. Upon filing a lawsuit in a superior court this August, AG Ann M. Rice insisted that Purdue continued many dubious business practices, including downplaying the risk of OxyContin addiction and failing to report any suspicious distribution of its products. Rice’s office had also investigated Insys at the beginning of this year.
Watch for more lawsuit announcements to hit the newswires as more state AGs realize this is one successful tactic that states can deploy to generate funds, which at a minimum can help local communities cope with this ongoing crisis. In August, for example, Illinois AG Lisa Madigan reached a $4.45 million settlement with Insys in order to fund such programs.
“Insys pushed a highly addictive opioid in complete disregard for patients’ health to increase company profits,” Madigan announced on August 18. “It’s unethical, greedy behavior by companies like Insys that is responsible for creating the opioid epidemic and resulting overdose deaths in our state.”

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MDL May Be On The Horizon In Opioid Litigation

Oct 6, 2017 | Law 360

By Emily Field

The recent wave of opioid litigation has yet to hit its peak, as new suits filed by counties and municipalities against drug manufacturers and other companies in the supply chain roll in on an almost daily basis, and it is increasingly likely that a number of federal cases will be consolidated, attorneys say.
Recently, the West Virginia firm of Hill Peterson Carper Bee & Deitzler PLLC asked to transfer 66 suits filed by cities and counties in 11 different federal courts, arguing the suits share common questions about the manufacture, distribution and sales of opioids by the defendants, and they mainly target the country’s three largest drug distributors, though some also name drugmakers Purdue, Teva and Cephalon, among others.

While it’s likely the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation would decide to consolidate these cases for efficiency's sake, a number of factors, like the number of defendants in the cases, would make such an MDL stand out, attorneys said.

Normally, MDLs have their origin in one defendant, such as Ethicon in the pelvic mesh litigation, or in claims against a bevy of defendants arising from a discrete event, like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, said Joe Rice of Motley Rice LLC, whose firm is representing Chicago, Santa Clara and other municipalities and states in opioid suits.

“So this would be an unusual management challenge in an MDL,” Rice said.

The ongoing opioid epidemic has given rise to at least 100 suits filed on behalf of local governments and a Cherokee tribe, as well as at least one proposed class action in Arkansas and a joint investigation launched this summer by 41 state attorneys general into at least half a dozen drugmakers and distributors.

The state AGs' probe initially focused on OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and has since widened to include other drugmakers and distributors such as Endo, Allergan, McKesson and Teva.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from prescription opioids have increased fourfold since 1999, roughly keeping pace with an increase in sales of opioids since 1999, even though Americans haven’t reported a change in pain levels.

Suits filed over the opioid crisis generally allege the drug companies downplayed the addictive risks of the drugs in order to turn a profit; other claims include negligence and violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and state business practices laws.

The petition for consolidation was filed by James Peterson of Hill Peterson Carper Bee & Deitzler, which represents more than 40 municipalities suing over the opioid crisis. The firm is working with a consortium of other plaintiffs firms, which may be a sticking point for the JPML, Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik PLLC noted.

“They may say, wait a second, you’re all the same firms, why do you need an MDL to coordinate with yourselves?” Shkolnik said. “That’s my concern about their petition.”

Shkolnik said that his firm is representing New York counties in a coordinated state court proceeding; it is also representing municipalities in other states including Maine and Ohio.

The suits filed by his firm on behalf of about 60 counties around the country are aimed at not only drugmakers and distributors, but also “pill mills,” as well as doctors and pharmacists who have lost their licenses for their role in the crisis. Other plaintiffs' firms are focused either largely on manufacturers or distributors of opioids, Shkolnik said.

Shkolnik likened the types of litigation to a Venn diagram: “We all cross over at some point; we cross over everybody, and they don’t all cross over on each other.”

While the similarity of counsel in the federal cases might be enough to dissuade the JPML at this point from consolidating the cases, Shkolnik did say that the momentum of new suits might override such concerns for the panel.

“You have a situation where I think they know this is going to grow and grow, so maybe they will do an opioid MDL, just knowing it’s going happen,” Shkolnik said.

Paul Hanly of Simmons Hanly, who is co-lead counsel in the New York county cases, also represents a number of cities in Connecticut.

"My plan file is to file as many county cases as I can gather over the course of the next year or so,” Hanly said. “I have 50 or so [now], and I expect that to grow to as many as 500 or 600.”

Hanly — who was one of the lawyers involved in Purdue’s 2007 $19.5 million multistate settlement over its opioid marketing — said that he expects to see different “pockets” of coordinated proceedings develop across the country as the litigation matures.

“I frankly would like every county join to litigation because that’s the way you get leverage over these companies, you have to have a lot of cases [that] are brought by a lot of lawyers who have a lot of firepower and a lot of money,” Hanly said.

George Talarico of Locke Lord LLP said that while he was surprised a plaintiff filed the motion for an MDL — as he’d expect plaintiffs would want to stay in their local courts — he didn’t see the motion being challenged by the defendants.

“I would think they would want the efficiency of an MDL as well,” Talarico said.

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Judge in Ohio could decide national opioid cases

Oct 7, 2017 | Associated Press

By Staff

Plaintiffs suing drugmakers and distributors in dozens of cases tied to the opioid crisis are seeking to have the lawsuits consolidated and overseen by one federal judge in Ohio.
Plaintiffs want to consolidate 66 lawsuits from Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia under a program known as “multidistrict litigation,” the Columbus Dispatch reports. The plaintiffs are asking that the cases be heard by Chief U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. in Columbus.
The city of Cincinnati is among the plaintiffs, filing its lawsuit in August.
"The sheer volume of prescription opioids distributed to pharmacies in Cincinnati is excessive for the medical need of the community and facially suspicious,” according to the city's lawsuit. "Some red flags are so obvious that no one who engages in the legitimate distribution of controlled substances can reasonably claim ignorance of them."
The idea of multidistrict litigation is to have cases involving similar questions of fact and law consolidated, with the outcomes of test cases helping inform whether remaining plaintiffs proceed to trial, settle or withdraw their claims. Resolving the cases could take years.
A panel of judges will consider the request Nov. 30.

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The heroes and villains of New Jersey’s opioid crisis

Oct 7, 2017 | NJ 101.5 (NJ)

By Jay Lassiter

New Jersey’s heroin crisis did not create itself. Big Pharma, greedy lobbyists, and dimwitted policy makers created the perfect conditions for addiction to take hold and to thrive.
Likewise, the solution to New Jersey’s heroin crisis won’t create itself either. This one won’t just work itself out. Luckily, there are heroic people working day and night to bring us back from the brink of our insatiable addiction to opiates like heroin and Percocet.
Today, we’ll get to know the villains who set the table for today’s crisis — and also the heroes working to get us back to good.
Let’s start there.
New Jersey Attorney General Chris Porrino, who we met in a recent episode, first appeared on my radar screen last year for busting shady docs who got rich by unleashing a torrent of deadly, addictive prescription opiates on our state.
Most recently, Porrino, a Chris Christie-appointee, rolled out new rules to curb over-prescribing of opioids in NJ. The new regulation bans prescribers from accepting lavish meals and uncapped compensation for speaking engagements and so-called “consulting work” from drugmakers.
“$60 or 70 million poured into New Jersey doctors from pharmaceutical manufacturers and device manufacturers to physicians (in 2016),” Porrino told me. “And we look at that further and we saw that a very large percentage of that $70 million dollars went to several hundred doctors. And based on investigation that we can’t talk publicly about, we were seeing instances where we believe that doctors were effectively being paid to prescribe.”
Porrino’s Office of Consumer Affairs also subpoenaed Janssen Pharmaceuticals “related to some practices in marketing opioids.”
Janssen, a subsidiary of Jersey-based drugmaker Johnson and Johnson, makes and markets fentanyl patches — a version of one of the deadliest, most addictive drug in the history of mankind. Fentanyl — also an increasingly popular street drug — is 60 to 100 times more potent than heroin. There were 417 reported fentanyl deaths in New Jersey in 2015, the last years these stats were available.
But as we learned from Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato in Heroin Uncut Episode 3, tragically, our fentanyl bodycount is on very much on the rise here in the Garden State:
“Back in 2014 here in Ocean County, 10 percent of our heroin packets had Fentanyl in it. Back in 2015, 30 percent of our packets. In 2016, 65 percent of our packets had Fentanyl in it.”
Attorney General Porrino’s willingness to target those who might prosper off addiction and misery is why he’s on the list. He joins Prosecutor Coronato who’s smart to know we can’t arrest our way out of this mess.
And that sets up our first villain.
It’s a pair of villains actually: medical lobbyists in Trenton and Assemblyman Herb Conaway, who chairs the powerful Assembly Health Committee in Trenton. He’s the gatekeeper for each and every piece of opiate-related legislation that passes through the New Jersey General Assembly. If he doesn’t like a bill for any reason, the bill dies.
The Medical Society of New Jersey is a lobbying outfit representing doctors, not patients. And many of those doctors enrich themselves by getting our kids hooked on this poison. They, along with Assemblyman Conaway, have for many years championed a no-limits approach to opiates — more pills for more patients of all ages at higher doses for a longer duration. It all equals more cash for drug makers.
That’s their cause and they’re pressing their case each and every day and Trenton. It’s big business and big money.
The days of big pharma (and their lobbyists) calling the shots are waning. The new regulations out of the AG’s office, the ones prohibiting doctors from getting paid to prescribe, are indeed a withering denunciation of the Medical Society, its lobbyists, and its legislative handmaidens like Herb Conaway.
And they know it.
Here’s proof: The lobbyists at Medical Society of New Jersey will host a “strategy panel” next month to discuss how these new regulations will affect their bottom line. They’re faced with losing a $70 million gravy train. And they don’t like it.
Their invite comes with a warning: “Governor Christie recently announced a regulatory proposal that would severely limit physician relationships with pharmaceutical companies.”
As for Assemblyman Herb Conaway, there are many reasons why he deserves blame for letting New Jersey’s heroin crisis rage out of control.
I’ll give you three:
1) Conaway and a former aide removed chronic pain from New Jersey’s medical marijuana program when the legislation enabling the program was proposed. By banning a non-opiate-based alternative, Herb Conaway deprived sick and dying patients safer, less-addictive options to manage their suffering. The former Conaway aide cited above is now chief lobbyist for The Medical Society of New Jersey, a.k.a. Big Pharma,, highlighting the borderline incestuous relationship between drug lobbyists and our lawmakers. It’s a revolving door, people. And we’re living the consequences.
2) Herb Conaway repeatedly refused measures placing sensible limits on initial prescription for opioids for acute pain. His approach: no limits. More pills at higher dosages for a longer durations for all ages. That’s his track record.
3) Herb Conaway refused to post a bill requiring prescribers to have a cursory conversation with patients about the risks of opioids. Conway said that the doctor-patient relationship is sacrosanct and that lawmakers mustn’t interfere even though we know that most heroin addicts get their start legally, often at a doctors office.
“When do we get our sense back?”
Ever since I started writing about my own recovery from IV drug use, I’ve gotten the occasional email or phone call from a parent in crisis. The pace of those messages has definitely picked up since starting Heroin Uncut.
Maybe they just buried their son. Or their daughter is doing sex work to support her heroin crisis. It’s hard to bear witness to that level of grief knowing the forces out there working overtime to keep the opiate pipeline flowing, unencumbered by the sensible regulations. Or any effort to curb NJ’s heroin body count.
It’s hard giving hope to a mom in crisis any real hope knowing the long odds their addicted loved one faces. It’s doubly difficult, knowing thegreedy collusion that got here — and especially how avoidable this heroin crisis was in the first place. And yet here we are.
It’s disgusting. And it’s scary and bewildering how insatiable our appetite for this garbage already is.
But I’ll let our next hero, former Gov. Jim McGreevy, make the call:
“It’s just so crazy. I mean, we’re 5 percent of the world’s population and we consume 99 percent of the world’s oxycodone. 99 percent. This is insane,” the former governor told me. “This is just crazy! It’s like … I don’t get it. I don’t care if you’re a Republican, Democrat, or a communist. I don’t get how (in) the United States of America, the greatest country in the world, the Food and Drug administration is legalizing the pain medications to the point where — where does it stop? When it’s upwards, in certain states in this country, one out of six in families is ravaged by addiction. … When do we get our sense back?”
To answer McGreevy’s question — “When do we get our sense back?” — the truth is I don’t really know. In fact, I’m not sure America’s approach to drug policy was ever sensible to begin with.
For McGreevy’s part, he’s devoted his post-political life to combating New Jersey’s heroin epidemic. The Garden State is lucky to have him working in the trenches, fighting the deadly opiate menace.
“And so this is happening one family at a time and we need to understand the importance of supporting treatment — particularly medication assisted treatment, drug court and opportunities for people to rebuild their lives and be made whole,” he said.
Heroism born from tragedy
Our next hero, Gail O’Brien from Marlton, has endured the unthinkable. Three years ago, a heroin overdose killed her son, Adam. He was 23 years old at the time.
To channel her grief, Gail started the Adam O’Brien Recovery Foundation, both to honor her son and to support treatment and full recovery from drugs and alcohol in New Jersey. That’s its mission, 24/7.
I asked Gail why drives her, why she fights so hard:
“I fight so hard because I truly don’t want to see another family suffer such an unimaginable loss. As many losses that I have seen in my community, I also have so many success stories.”
Gail and I met on Facebook after I put out a call for Narcan, the drug used to reverse an opiate overdose. I needed a Narcan kit for a demonstration video. Narcan can be a real lifesaver and it’s really not that hard to use — and let’s be honest, in this day and age. knowing how to recognize and reverse a heroin overdose is basic first aid. How sad is that?
Anyway, we put out the call for Narcan, and the very next day, UPS comes calling with an overnight package from the Adam O’Brian Foundation with not one, but two opiate reversal kits — one for demonstration and another on hand for, God forbid, an emergency. You just never know.
Gail and the Adam O’Brien Foundation do much more than ensure Narcan for anyone who needs it, and I’m excited to fill you in on all that when we interview Gail in a week or two, when we’ll learn from her resilience and honor her personal loss.
But today we’re proud to shout out to Gail O’Brien for what she’s given back to New Jersey’s recovery community.
A personal note
Fourteen years ago today, I shot drugs for the last time. The next day, I’d check into rehab for the most rigorous 28-day ass-kicking of my life.
Back then, my long-term prospects were very dark and very dim. If you told me, on this day, 14 years ago that I’d live long enough to afford New Jersey property taxes and have a podcast busting Big Pharma’s balls, i would’ve lacked the capacity to even dream of such a thing.
These are the outcomes we fight for.

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Drug abusers, not manufacturers, to blame (Letter to the Editor)

Oct 7, 2017 | New Haven Register (CT)

By Mike Santacroce

The forum article written by Valerie Calistro puts the blame for the current opioid epidemic on pharmaceutical companies. Let’s put aside the self-serving slant of the article, since attorney Calistro just happens to work for a law firm representing plaintiffs against these pharmaceutical companies. The larger problem seems to be in the statement that begins paragraph five of the article: “Opioid painkillers are powerful narcotics derived from opium, meant for the short-term treatment of severe pain.” This statement is absolutely correct. So, what part of that is hard to understand? Anyone who uses these drugs beyond short term will be in trouble. Big trouble. How people manage to get their hands on these drugs beyond short-term use is not the problem of the pharmaceutical companies. When used properly, opioids provide relief from intense pain, and that’s where their usefulness ends. Doctors who prescribe them, pharmacies that sell them, and people who take them provide three levels of separation from the companies that make them with good intentions. It has been well known for decades that any opioid is extremely addictive and long-term use is contra-indicated.
The U.S. government has for a long time set its focus on suppliers of narcotics, both legally and illegally distributed, as the problem, fighting cartels in Colombia, drug lords in Mexico, the Taliban and their poppy fields, and pushers and dealers here in major cities and suburbs. But why is the demand for drugs, especially narcotics, so high in the U.S.? For years the U.S. has led the world in drug usage per year, both legal and illegal. Perhaps it’s time the country put its efforts into fighting the high demand, not the supply, of drugs in general, and narcotics in particular.

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A national emergency on opioid addiction (OPINION)

Oct 7, 2017 | Philadelphia Tribune

By The New York Times Staff

Opioid addiction has developed such a powerful grip on Americans that some scientists have blamed it for lowering our life expectancy.
Drug overdoses, nearly two-thirds of them from prescription opioids, heroin and synthetic opioids, killed some 64,000 Americans last year, over 20 percent more than in 2015. That is also more than double the number in 2005, and nearly quadruple the number in 2000, when accidental falls killed more Americans than opioid overdoses.
The President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis said in July that its “first and most urgent recommendation” was for President Trump to declare a national emergency, to free up emergency funds for the crisis and “awaken every American to this simple fact: If this scourge has not found you or your family yet, without bold action by everyone, it soon will.” The commission’s final report is due out in a month.
Mr. Trump has not declared an emergency, and “bold” would not describe the steps the White House has taken so far. The president’s 2018 budget request increases addiction treatment funding by less than 2 percent, even including $500 million already appropriated by Congress in 2016 under the 21st Century Cures Act.
Families across the United States are demanding that more be done to end the despair and devastation of addiction ... The government needs to save Americans, not cast them off.

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Broadcast Media Coverage

PBS NewsHour Weekend

Oct 7, 2017 | PBS

By National Programming

Video Link 1: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947346?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
Video Link 2: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947347?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
Rough Transcript: as the newshour has reported all week, america's opioid epidemic claims 91 lives every day. in ohio, fatal overdoses now outnumber deaths from car crashes. to give you an idea of how pervasive the problem is in ohio, emergency responders there have administered the life- saving, overdose-reversing medication narcan more than 50,000 times in the past year and a half. in tonight's signature segment, 6:09 PMnewshour weekend special correspondent chris bury explains why ohio is now suing companies that make opioid painkillers. this story is part of the special newshour series," america addicted." >> reporter: in ohio, the climbing costs of the opioid epidemic are reflected in the shattered lives of people like ashley taylor. for the 26-year-old single mother of three, the road to addiction began in high school, with pain pills often stolen from the parents of friends. by 16, she was snorting, then shooting, heroin because it was cheaper and easy to buy in the small southern ohio town of jackson, where she lives. when did you know that you were addicted? >> i'd say probably within a couple of weeks of doing them because, you know, your body starts hurting and aching really bad. and like, you're just, like, so sick that you have to have it. >> reporter: ashley says she's been clean and sober for just 6:10 PMover a year, but the costs to her and to ohio are still piling up. to begin, she lost custody of her three children after police raided her home on suspicion she was selling drugs. >> they kicked in my doors, and my kids were home at the time. and there was multiple other people in my house, and they all just kind of threw their needles on the floor. and so, of course, i was the one that got arrested, and they took my kids at the exact same time. >> reporter: ashley was charged with child endangerment and spent two weeks in jail. >> welcome to drug court, jackson county municipal court. >> reporter: but in a deal with jackson county's drug court, set up to handle a deluge of opioid cases, ashley's guilty plea is on hold while she follows judge mark musick's orders on treatment over two years. >> okay, i see that you're still doing your full schedule with task and h.r.s., and you're compliant. >> reporter: the costs of compliance are high: every day, ashley gets a ride to her aunt's house to visit her three kids. ohio's child protective 6:11 PMservices, or c.p.s., placed ashley's seven-year-old daughter and two boys, four and six, in the custody of ashley's aunt. c.p.s. pays her $474 a month to help raise the kids. foster care for children placed because of their parents' drug addiction, mainly from opioids, costs ohio $45 million a year. ashley's youngest child was born drug dependent; treatment for such children costs ohio another $130 million a year. >> and they're still supportive of your sobriety, right? >> yeah. very, actually. >> reporter: every week, ashley must attend multiple counseling sessions and get tested for drugs. and for eight months, ashley needed shots of the anti-addiction drug, vivitrol. they cost more than $1,000 per injection. overall, such medications and the counseling cost ohio 6:12 PMmedicaid $216 million last year. and that doesn't include the costs of ohio's opioid epidemic to its hospitals, prisons and police, or the rising death count. in 2016, 4,050 people in ohio died of overdoses, chiefly painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. that was a 33% increase over 2015 and a 642% increase since 2000. >> think about this. we're losing ten people, we think, every single day in the state of ohio. >> reporter: those staggering losses and rising costs led ohio attorney general mike dewine, a former u.s. senator now running for governor, to sue five major producers of opioid painkillers. >> ...companies that we conclude spent millions of dollars to deceptively market their drugs. >> reporter: ohio's lawsuit levels an explosive charge: that the pharmaceutical companies 6:13 PMdeliberately misled doctors and the public to downplay the addictive qualities and hyped the benefits of painkillers that earn them billions of dollars a year. >> the evidence, we think, is overwhelming. we think it shows that what they did was... they did on purpose. they told physicians and spent millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, to get this message across to physicians that these opioids were not very addictive. >> reporter: the companies sued include purdue pharma, which makes the widely prescribed painkiller, oxycontin; johnson and johnson; teva pharmaceuticals; endo health solutions; and allergan. the pharmaceutical companies filed a joint motion to dismiss the lawsuit. none agreed to our requests to be interviewed. purdue pharma told "newshou weekend" 6:14 PMin a statement to us, jannsen, a johnson and johnson subsidiary, noted its painkiller pills... is that going to be difficult for you to convince a jury that this was harmful, when the f.d.a. was very clear in its approval? >> well, merely because the f.d.a. approves something does not mean that a pharmaceutical company cannot mislead people. and i think the evidence is clearly going to show they did consistently over a number of decades. >> reporter: attorney jodi avergun is a former chief of staff for the drug enforcement administration. now, she represents drug companies, though she's not involved in this lawsuit. >> the people that pharmaceutical reps market to are doctors; they're trained physicians. and an opioid is an addictive drug. so, it's hard for me to believe that there is a naive population of doctors out there to whom pharmaceutical sales representatives were able to lie and mislead to the extent that's 6:15 PMalleged in the lawsuit. >> reporter: as evidence, the lawsuit cites pamphlets and educational guides, and claims companies paid sales reps and doctors millions of dollars to promote opioids and play down the risks of addiction. this video was produced by purdue pharma. >> and so, these drugs, which i repeat are our best, strongest pain medications should be used much more than they are for patients in pain. >> reporter: dr. dona alba treats addicts in jackson, ohio. she was a family physician for 20 years and says pharma company representatives frequently pushed opioids. >> they often came to the office. they pitched the product as the best possible analgesic for your patients, irrespective of the source of their pain, whether it was acute or whether it was chronic. >> reporter: and what kind of risk did they talk about or warn about? >> none. >> reporter: and what about the risk of addiction? >> none! they said these products did not cause people to become addicted, so they were safe to 6:16 PMuse. >> reporter: in its lawsuit, ohio also accuses big pharma of "taking a page" from big tobac in the way they minimized risks of addiction. now, ohio has hired michael moore, the former mississippi attorney general who helped win a $246 billion settlement with tobacco companies in the 1990s. >> it's just like the tobacco case. you have folks who made billions of dollars by lying to the american public and causing a huge public nuisance, and in this case, killing 60,000 people a year. who should pay for that? the taxpayers or the companies who made the billions of dollars? in my view, the companies ought to pay for it. >> the critical difference here is that this case is involving medicine; it's involving something that people in the health care business are making and distributing. tobacco was a product that people enjoyed and smoked, and there was no claim that it was good for you. 6:17 PMso, i think that that's a very huge difference. >> reporter: ohio's attorney general filed this lawsuit here in chillicothe, in the southern part of the state, bordering the appalachian mountains. in this county of 77,000 people, the lawsuit claims more than 1.6 million opioid pills were prescribed in 2015 alone. that's the equivalent of 21 pills for every man, woman and child here in ross county. >> well, we got him into treatment, and he doesn't have a ride today. >> reporter: chillicothe police detective bud lytle leads a team that tries to get overdose survivors into treatment. >> did we have the double overdose in 12 north high? >> reporter: in this county, fatal overdoses from prescription painkillers have now been overtaken by those from heroin and fentanyl. but lytle sees a strong tie. do you see a direct connection from the opioids to heroin and fentanyl? >> 70% to 80% of the individuals that i deal with, their addictions started with a legitimate prescription from a doctor and then taking it the way the doctor had originally prescribed until they became addicted. eventually, what happens is, the pills are much more expensive than heroin, much more expensive than fentanyl to buy on the street. >> reporter: lytle's entire job is to battle the opioid epidemic. every wednesday, his team visits the homes of everyone in the county who overdosed the week before. >> hey, logan what's up, man? >> reporter: during our visit, he checked up on 21-year-old logan mcgraw at his mother's home. he had overdosed six times on heroin and fentanyl over the last month. yeah, i was at my house, and my mom found me unconscious. >> do you have your insurance card with you? >> reporter: detective lytle takes logan to a treatment center. his bill will cost ohio more than $5,000 a month. overall, the state claims, fatal overdoses, medical expenses and lost work cost ohioans $4 billion a year. a cascade of opioids lawsuits 6:19 PMagainst big pharma by ohio and nine other states raises the odds of a settlement, according to michael moore. he'd like to see any money recovered used to help addicts and prevent opioid use. >> a prevention and education program will cost at least $100 million a year, similar to what we did in the tobacco cases to reduce youth smoking. we also hope and learned a lesson from tobacco that we can get court orders that will say money has to go into treatment, money has to go into prevention. >> reporter: ashley taylor agrees. after years of not working because of her addiction and arrests, she now has a part-time job at this fast food outlet. she's saving to rent a three-bedroom home big enough to fit her three kids. if she does that and stays clean, she can get her children back in legal custody again. >> i graduated a parenting class. so, as long as i'm clean and i get a big house, like, you know, for them, then they can come home with me. >> reporter: you're looking forward to that? >> yes, i am. like, i'm so excited.

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RTV6: Indianapolis This Week

Oct 8, 2017 | WRTV (ABC)

By Indianapolis, IN

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947348?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505

Rough Transcript: the other big issue this week is the city of indianapolis, going after the opioids manufacturers. those that make percocet and vicodin. and is that good public policy? will we see anything out of it? i imagine that's going to take many years to get to federal court. >> write this down. 12:15 PMi'm actually going to give joe hogsett credit here. do not adjust your set. >> it is resurrection sunday. >> looking at -- the question is going to be in litigation sunday. this is sort of a replay of the old tobacco lawsuits in the 1990s. in my days as attorney general, we were involved in that litigation. the question is going to be when the drug manufacturers, what do they know about the level of addiction? and did they conceal that information from doctors, hospitals, patients. when you use the product as they prescribe it, would you become more addicted? and when you look at more opioid deaths than traffic deaths. 31% increase in juvenile court. i think the city does have a case. the trick is going to be in the proof of can you draw that connection? but i gotta give credit where yet crt is due. >> i'm agreeing with abdul again, which i can't believe. mayor hogsett is taking action. this is important. we've got to do something. i think the mayor is absolutely doing something here. >> is this an initiative that it's going to feel like we're doing something about it? when this lawsuit may take 12:16 PMyears? we might not even see the outcome of this thing. because as you can imagine, those drug companies are going to push back. >> but you know, that's the nature of litigation. and the city apparently is going to do that. we're not the only city or municipality or state to do that. new jersey, about an hour after mayor hogsett announced this, announced they're going to do the same thing. we'll see where this leads. the guy at the end of the couch is the one with the j.d. after his name. but the one company that you look at, the endohealth, which is one of the companies that irvin vile -- levin said theez going to be targeting. they make the drug that single- handedly caused the epidemic. that's a drug that is so adictive, that the -- ooh dictive that -- ooh -- addictive that they said, you have to take this off the market. >> real quickly. the same thing was said about the tobacco company. saying there was no way you'd be able to squeeze money out of them. but here we are. >> thank you. next week. lessons learned the hard way. what an indianapolis chef hopes is a teaching moment for people

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FOX23 News This Morning

Oct 8, 2017 | KOKI (News)

By Tulsa, OK

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947350?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
Rough Transcript: cigna, one of the nations largest health providers say they will stop covering the painkiller oxycontin. cigna says it will go into effect next year calling it an efort to curb opioid abuse. oxycontin is the brand namefor the narcotic oxycodone the isurance provider said it's -- it will still cover generic forms of the painkiller. we will ave details for you with overdose rates rising, president trump declared the opioid crisis and national emergency. oklahoma and other states are suing opioid manufacturers claiming deceptve marketing has fueled the opioid epidemic. last month cbs announced they are taking steps to limit the opioid prescriptions.>>>

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News 12 New Jersey

Oct 8, 2017 | N12NJ (News 12)

By New York, NY

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947352?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
Rough Transcript: The city of newark is suing- several opioid manufacturers. officials allege- the companies down- played the risk of opioid addiction- and over-stated the drugs' benefits. among those named in the suit -- purdue pharma -- the maker of oxycontin. the lawsuit announcement comes- as new jersey recognizes knock out opioid abuse day. volunters in glen rockhanded out informational pamphlets al over town yesterday. some were stationed-- at the rock ridge pharmacy on rock road. a comunity funded prescription disposal box was instaled there. the drop-of is already seeing some action. "the idea for this is to ge the medications out of the home so that way individuals - tens, adults, anybody - won't go in the medicine cabinet and unfortuantely take the medication." the box will be accesible during the box wil be accesible during pharmacy hours--7 days a week.

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WMBC News

Oct 8, 2017 | WMNC (WMBC)

By New York, NY

Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/29947353?token=d4d94224-3713-4754-b562-9e1a2fc65505
Rough Transcript: newark opioid lawsuitááá largest city has sued several opioid manufacturers over what it claims are deceptive advertising practices. newark mayor ras baraka announced the lawsuit friday. it alleges the companies downplayed the risk of opioid addiction and overstated the drugálong term benefits. the suit seeks unspecified monetary damages. one of the companies named in the lawsuit it connecticut based purdue pharma, makers of oxycontin. in an emailed statement, a purdue spokesman says the company denies the allegations. on thursday, the office announced a lawsuitagainst phoenix based insys therapeutics, maker of a fentanyl painkiller spray. that lawsuit claims the company directed its sales force to have doctors prescribe the drug for any type of chronic pain even though it was only approved for cancer patients who benefit from other opioids.

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