Detroit and Macomb County officials announced today they are fighting the opioid epidemic by mounting a wide-ranging lawsuit against drug manufacturers, similar to the approach taken in the 1990s by dozens of states that resulted in a $250 billion settlement against cigarette companies.
The federal suit not only targets large pharmaceutical companies and health care system distributors but also retail drug stores such as Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid.
The legal claim is that these defendants recklessly perpetuated widespread distribution of highly addictive prescription opioids – various forms of painkillers – to people seeking medical help with injuries who did not know the consequences.
As a result, the suit claims, taxpayers have paid a heavy cost through substance abuse treatment provided by the Medicaid program, disability benefits and care provided by local health departments. The expenses experienced by police and paramedics responding to drug overdoses are also part of the monetary damages the cities and counties are trying to recoup.
Joining the lawsuit are the counties of Genesee, Saginaw, Grand Traverse, the city of Lansing and three Upper Peninsula communities, Escanaba and the counties of Delta and Chippewa.
The suit alleges that Michigan’s unprecedented opioid crisis results from racketeering, aggressive over-promotion of the pain-killing products, fraudulent claims about the safety of prescription opioids, and irresponsible corporate production and distribution of opioids to gain huge profits amounting to billions of dollars.
Essentially, the claims are similar to those made against tobacco companies that said grossly negligent assertions made by the manufacturers attempted to downplay the health risks of smoking and that the subsequent medical care had fallen onto taxpayers. The resulting 25-year, $246 billion settlement reached in 1998 was shared by 46 states due to a class action lawsuit.
The money at stake this time could be much, much larger.
According to Governing Magazine, more than 100 states and localities have filed suit against drug makers due to the nation’s opioid crisis. Many of those legal claims have come in recent months.
Governing reported these details in November:
Most of the governments argue in their cases that drug companies violated consumer protection statutes by deceiving the medical community about the likelihood of addiction and inadvertently putting patients in danger. Many lawsuits are also claiming that drug companies committed Medicaid fraud by forcing taxpayers to pay for unnecessary prescriptions.
If a judge rules that drug companies violated consumer protection statutes … states could receive up to $10,000 per occurrence, which a judge could interpret as each prescription or each doctors visit. Either way, that would result in trillions of dollars for the state and local governments.
In the United States, 175 Americans die each day from opioids, and 75 percent of opioid abusers began their addiction through a legal prescription. Over time, if addicts can’t get prescription painkillers, some resort to illegal opiate drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. Fentanyl is at least 50 times stronger than heroin and can kill abusers within seconds.
What’s surprising is that, other than Grand Traverse, no other northern Lower Peninsula counties are taking part in the lawsuit. Data shows that many Up North counties are suffering dramatic effects from the opioid epidemic, creating havoc for employers seeking to hire new, sober workers.
The lawsuit led by Detroit and Macomb County will be handled by the Bernstein law firm of Detroit. Attorney Mark Bernstein said that the case would assert that drug manufacturers were telling physicians that prescribed opioids are, at worst, minimally addictive.
The suit was announced today at a press conference held at the Macomb County morgue by Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.
Opioid-related deaths in Macomb County rose 134% in 2016 to 202 and could reach the rate of one death per day this year.
In Detroit, about 300 people died in Detroit last year from opioid abuse and related medical conditions.
