Big Pharma must pay for role in fueling drug crisis

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The manufacturers of OxyContin are making what should be viewed as the pharmaceutical industry’s down payment on a debt owed to drug-ravaged towns across America.

Purdue Pharma and the family that holds a controlling interest in the company have agreed to pay $270 million to settle Oklahoma’s lawsuit alleging the company’s intense marketing of OxyContin contributed to the opioid epidemic. About $200 million will be used to create the National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment at the University of Oklahoma at Tulsa, while local governments will share millions more.

The one downside is that Purdue Pharma admits no wrongdoing in the settlement. That’s disappointing because the families that have lost relatives to opioids, and the communities and states that have expended so much on interdiction and treatment, all deserve to have someone accept responsibility.

Maybe the industry will one day admit its mistakes. Oklahoma’s suit was just the tip of the iceberg. Across the country, communities and states have filed thousands of lawsuits against Purdue Pharma and other drug manufacturers believed to have fueled opioid use by improperly hyping the drugs or understating their addictive qualities. Allegheny County and the city are parties to one of them.

JOINT INVESTIGATION

In addition, the attorneys general in about 40 states, including Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, are conducting a joint investigation into drugmakers and distributors. That probe has the potential to yield a combination of civil and criminal penalties.

Some have speculated that the mountain of litigation eventually will lead to a global settlement like the states’ 1998 landmark agreement with the tobacco industry, which agreed to drop certain marketing practices and pay $206 billion over 25 years. Just as some of the tobacco agreement money was spent on prevention programs, the payouts in opioid settlements should be used to fund prevention programs and treatment initiatives. It also should be used for law enforcement’s anti-drug work and for even broader purposes, such as economic development in depressed towns.

The opioid epidemic has many causes, not least the hopelessness that comes from living in economically struggling communities, and users have many access points, such as mail drops of synthetic drug varieties illegally shipped here from China.

But U.S. drugmakers should pay for whatever role they played in creating, then fueling, a nightmare health crisis. They also should admit responsibility for their role and say they’re sorry.