This gets pretty complicated.
Let's be honest: drugs and politics are interlinked. Our feelings about drugs — their introduction into the community, how to handle them legally, whether or not to educate kids about them, even their usage — are hard to separate from where we stand on the political spectrum. People have opinions. It's just a fact.
But I think we can all agree that there is an ongoing and pervasive opioid problem in America and that Annapolis is not immune. As a result, the city is taking steps to get out in front of the problem in an effort to slow it down by joining other states and cities in suing pharmacies that legally make and market opioids.
But wait. Aren't opioids addictive and bad and illegal? Well, yes and no.
Technically, Oxycontin, Percocet, and other painkillers are part of the opioid family. Chances are you've been prescribed an opiate at some point in your life, and everything was completely fine. Maybe you had your wisdom teeth removed, maybe you had surgery, maybe you suffer from severe arthritis, maybe you've had the worst UTI of your life and feel like you're sitting in a puddle of acid (heard it from a friend ...). Chances are you were given a prescription for a low dose of opioids. Or maybe it wasn't a low dosage. That's between you, your doctor, and the pharmaceutical companies.
There's no denying that these medications can be very helpful. There's also no denying that they can be very addictive.
This lawsuit is involving the city of Annapolis in taking companies Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Endo Health Solutions, Insys Therapeutics, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Cardinal Health, Inc., the McKesson Corp., and the Amerisourcebergen Drug Corp to task for not being completely transparent when it comes to the risks and dangers of taking these medications. The suit describes the companies as participating in “unfettered distribution of opioids into the city.”
Here's the thing: The lawsuit is claiming that because these companies pushed their opioid-based medications as effective and longterm treatments for pain, people have been suffering from doctor-prescribed addictions and that these medications have made opioids easier to access and abuse. Other states and counties have been filing similar lawsuits, and some have been met with relative success, dating all the way back to when Purdue Pharma pled guilty in 2007 to misleading medical professionals about how addictive Oxycontin is. They ended up paying about $600 million in fines.
But this kind of thing is still going on. Even earlier this year, the founder of pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics was indicted for allegedly bribing doctors to prescribe their opioid painkiller to patients.
The pharmaceutical companies are pushing back, denying responsibility for the current and ongoing opioid crisis. They're not physically handing out the drugs; they're not physically encouraging patients or others to abuse them. A representative for several of the companies has said, "Those bringing lawsuits would be better served addressing the root causes, rather than trying to redirect blame through litigation."
But what is the root cause? The makers of the drugs? The takers of the drugs? The prescribers? And that's where things can get personal and political. No matter whose side you fall on, this will be an interesting case for the community to watch. Annapolis has seen opioid overdoses quadruple in the past four years. Litigators are hoping to put potential monetary winnings toward public safety expenses. It's in the hands of the U.S. law system now.
