Tennessee Counties Sue Opioid Makers Using Local "Crack Tax" Law
by Tyler Durden
Jun 16, 2017 8:10 PM
The US opioid epidemic has continued to worsen in 2017 as super-powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil taint the nation’s heroin supply.
While the FBI’s final tally has yet to arrive, preliminary data suggest
that overdose deaths last year eclipsed the 50,000 recorded nationally
in 2015 – the most ever. And the body count is expected to be even
higher in 2017. As the death toll in some of the hardest-hit areas of
the country skyrockets - in some cases forcing county coroners to build larger freezers to store the bodies
– states have begun filing lawsuits against the pharmaceutical
companies responsible for making and marketing opioid painkillers, in
hopes of offsetting the ballooning public-health costs that have been a
byproduct of the crisis.
Three Tennessee district attorneys are the latest prosecutors to file suit against the drug makers, joining a group that includes the attorneys general of Ohio, Illinois, Mississippi, New York and Santa Clara and Orange County in California – not to mention the Cherokee Nation. But the Tennessee prosecutors' approach differs from their peers in one unique way:
While the companies targeted by individual states differ, prosecutors are all alleging similar misconduct: That the pharmaceutical companies leaned on researchers to play down the drugs’ addictive qualities, while spending millions on marketing them to both patients and doctors.
Another lawsuit filed in Washington in January alleged that Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, was aware of the drug’s immense popularity on the streets, but did nothing to curb its distribution.
The suit also names a “Baby Doe” as a plaintiff. “Baby Doe,” the News Sentinel reports, is a boy born in March 2015 addicted to opiates because his mother, identified as “Mary Doe,” was an opiate addict and bought her drugs in Sullivan County, one of the three judicial districts represented in the legal action.
Filed on behalf of the three prosecutors and Baby Doe by Nashville law firm Branstetter, Stranch and Jennings, the lawsuit spends dozens of pages detailing publicly available accounts of alleged fraud and deceptive marketing practices by opiate manufacturers.
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III issued a statement Tuesday in which he said his office is investigating the state's options in pursuing its own legal action.
However, since police typically seize convicted drug dealers’ profits under criminal and civil forfeiture laws – and since most drug dealers go to prison after they’re arrested – there was rarely anything left to be claimed in civil court.
But unlike street dealers, pharma firms are flush with cash. Purdue has annual sales of nearly $3 billion, while Mallinckrodt and Endo also rack up billions each year from sales of opiate drugs.
Many legal experts have said that the current batch of lawsuits resembles the 1998 settlement between the four largest US tobacco companies – Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard – and 46 states attorneys general. In accordance with that judgment, the tobacco companies agreed to pay out more than $200 billion through 2025, with payments to be made in perpetuity.
While states are no doubt in need of financial resources to offset the public-health costs they’re forced to absorb because of the epidemic, pharmaceutical companies have at least one strategy to legally deflect blame: If the showdown ever makes it to trial, defense attorneys will try to slough off as much blame as possible on the overprescribing doctors, like one elderly physician who was arrested earlier this month in New York City and charged with needlessly prescribing millions of pills.
Three Tennessee district attorneys are the latest prosecutors to file suit against the drug makers, joining a group that includes the attorneys general of Ohio, Illinois, Mississippi, New York and Santa Clara and Orange County in California – not to mention the Cherokee Nation. But the Tennessee prosecutors' approach differs from their peers in one unique way:
They are suing under the state’s long-ridiculed and rarely used “crack tax” law, which would hold Big Pharma liable for damages as if they were street-level drug dealers, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.
While the companies targeted by individual states differ, prosecutors are all alleging similar misconduct: That the pharmaceutical companies leaned on researchers to play down the drugs’ addictive qualities, while spending millions on marketing them to both patients and doctors.
Another lawsuit filed in Washington in January alleged that Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, was aware of the drug’s immense popularity on the streets, but did nothing to curb its distribution.
The suit also names a “Baby Doe” as a plaintiff. “Baby Doe,” the News Sentinel reports, is a boy born in March 2015 addicted to opiates because his mother, identified as “Mary Doe,” was an opiate addict and bought her drugs in Sullivan County, one of the three judicial districts represented in the legal action.
Filed on behalf of the three prosecutors and Baby Doe by Nashville law firm Branstetter, Stranch and Jennings, the lawsuit spends dozens of pages detailing publicly available accounts of alleged fraud and deceptive marketing practices by opiate manufacturers.
Tennessee logs more opiate prescriptions per capita than every state in the nation except West Virginia, the News Sentinel reported. Sullivan County is considered an epicenter, so much so its law enforcement agencies snared their own reality television shows. Shelby County in West Tennessee is also considering joining the lawsuit.“It is now beyond reasonable question that the manufacturer defendants’ fraud caused Mary Doe and thousands of others in Tennessee to become addicted to opioids — an addiction that, thanks to their fraudulent conduct, was all but certain to occur,” the lawsuit stated.
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III issued a statement Tuesday in which he said his office is investigating the state's options in pursuing its own legal action.
That “crack tax” – otherwise known as the drug dealer liability statute - was passed in 2005 to allow for civil action against street drug dealers, many of whom were peddling crack."Our objective is to identify and hold accountable the parties responsible for this opioid epidemic," the statement read.
However, since police typically seize convicted drug dealers’ profits under criminal and civil forfeiture laws – and since most drug dealers go to prison after they’re arrested – there was rarely anything left to be claimed in civil court.
But unlike street dealers, pharma firms are flush with cash. Purdue has annual sales of nearly $3 billion, while Mallinckrodt and Endo also rack up billions each year from sales of opiate drugs.
Many legal experts have said that the current batch of lawsuits resembles the 1998 settlement between the four largest US tobacco companies – Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard – and 46 states attorneys general. In accordance with that judgment, the tobacco companies agreed to pay out more than $200 billion through 2025, with payments to be made in perpetuity.
While states are no doubt in need of financial resources to offset the public-health costs they’re forced to absorb because of the epidemic, pharmaceutical companies have at least one strategy to legally deflect blame: If the showdown ever makes it to trial, defense attorneys will try to slough off as much blame as possible on the overprescribing doctors, like one elderly physician who was arrested earlier this month in New York City and charged with needlessly prescribing millions of pills.
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Mass. AG joins sweeping investigation of opioid makers
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey
said Thursday that her office has joined a broad, bipartisan coalition
of states in investigating sales and marketing practices at opioid
manufacturers.
Healey
and a group of state attorneys general from across the country
announced that they are participating in the investigation, which aims
to determine whether drug companies have contributed to the nationwide
opioid abuse crisis.
The announcements did not identify which
companies are being targeted. A U.S. Senate committee is pursuing a
separate investigation into sales and marketing practices at five
companies: Depomed, Purdue Pharma, Mylan, Janssen and Insys.
“The
opioid epidemic is a public health crisis that is claiming lives in our
state and across the country, and we want to assure our residents that
we are doing all that we can to combat it,” Healey said in a statement.
“I am working with my colleagues in actively investigating whether
manufacturers used illegal practices in the marketing and sale of
opioids and worsened this deadly crisis.”
It
is rare for prosecutors to publicly disclose ongoing investigations.
For that reason, it is possible that some states that did not issue
press releases on Thursday are also participating.
According to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office, the investigation involves a “majority” of states.
The
opioid crisis has taken a deadly toll in Massachusetts. According to
the state public health department, more than 2,000 people died from
opioid-related overdoses last year, a record number.
Healey’s
office recently announced a partnership with the GE Foundation to
provide substance use prevention curriculum materials to every public
middle school in the state. The foundation is contributing $1.5 million
to the initiative, with Healey’s office contributing $500,000.
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All these facts and still no national pharma data base.
ReplyDeleteStates who don't cooperate are the states who big pharma control.
Corporations are at the wheel and the drive is heading into the ditch,grave.