Hitting back at opioid makers

The Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders looks poised to take action to hit back at drug makers and other entities blamed for the opioid drug crisis.

On Wednesday, it is expected the freeholders will approve filing a lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturers, their owners and distributors toward abating the massive problem and recouping costs the county has incurred due to their unscrupulous practices.

About half the counties in the state have taken or are considering similar action, according to Sussex County Counsel Kevin Kelly.

Kelly expects the lawsuits, which are being handled by a consortium of law firms in the state, will eventually be consolidated.

New Jersey filed its own lawsuit along similar lines last November, one of several states that are taking on the addictive drug producing players including Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin.

Purdue is among the likely defendants in Sussex County’s proposed lawsuit.

Statistics show that since 1999, more than 700,000 people in the United States have died of drug overdoses, largely traced to opioids.

The online Addiction Center reports that 130 Americans died every day last year from an opioid-related overdose. More than 47,600 people suffered a drug overdose that involved an opioid in 2017, a nearly 600 percent increase from 1999.

Last year, 35 Sussex County residents died of drug overdoses; 37 the year before and 36 the year before that. So far this year, eight persons in the county have died of suspected drug overdoses.

Local efforts to stem the crisis such as those of the Center for Prevention and Counseling and its CLEAR program, which collaborates with law enforcement and health care personnel, are having some success.

But even as progress is being reported on helping drug addicts get into recovery, new drug users are entering the pipeline, moving beyond opioids to heroin and fentanyl.

Verbiage in a similar lawsuit reads: “… Defendants, individually and collectively, have engaged in conduct which endangers or injures the health and safety of the residents of the County by their promotion, marketing, distribution, and overall efforts to increase the use and sales of opioids within the County and by their failure to monitor, report and prevent such abuses and/or injurious distribution and prescriptions.”

Purdue Pharma and its ownership have been accused of entertaining the idea of going into the drug rehabilitation business while continuing to push out its addictive opioid product — which would have them profiting as well on the other end of addiction problems they helped cause.

The drug manufacturer recently settled a suit against it in Oklahoma for $270 million. That money will go toward addiction studies and treatment, treatment medication costs, and reimbursement of costs incurred to tackle the opioid crisis including law enforcement and litigation costs.

Sussex County Freeholder Director Herb Yardley, who strongly supports the county joining in on efforts to hold accountable those culpable of the crisis, said he expects any money that results from a county lawsuit will be used for purposes including education, rehabilitation and treatment, seeking recommendations and working with the Center for Prevention and Counseling and CLEAR.

“Whatever we’re able to recover we’ll put to good use,” Yardley said.

As the case would be taken on a contingency basis, the only cost to the county would be whatever internal legal work was needed, which would include figuring out the specific costs of the drug crisis to the county and its residents. There is no down side.

Understand that Sussex County will be just one of thousands of litigants going after the opioid manufacturers, profiteers, pharmacies and distributors.

Other defendants remain in the Oklahoma lawsuit, and Purdue and many others accused of causing the crisis are facing litigation in 36 states. Sixteen hundred cases against Purdue are now under one judge in Ohio.

But it’s going to take a huge collective ongoing effort to win this battle.

Sussex County is right to join in the effort toward keeping our friends and neighbors from succumbing to drug addiction and fatal overdoses.

It’s a chance to hit back.

Let’s take it.