Wyoming County Commissioner Ron Williams (above, right) looks on as commissioner Tom Henry reads Resolution 2017-3 detailing the county’s lawsuit against major producers and distributors of prescription opiates they say have created a costly culture of drug abuse and addiction.
Story and Photo by Rick Hiduk
(As published in the Jan. 4 edition of the Rocket-Courier)
After nearly a month of deliberation, the Wyoming County Commissioners have opted to join a lawsuit against five major manufacturers of prescription opiates. Additionally listed in the lawsuit are wholesale drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen Drug. In a press release distributed at the Dec. 26 meeting of the commissioners, producers are cited for “dumping millions of dollars” of drugs on the community and “making the opioid epidemic possible.”
With this action, Wyoming County joins its neighbors to the south in blaming opiate producers for a public health and safety crisis that has cost the community “a small fortune” from its impact on emergency responders and law enforcement to addiction treatment programs, the county prison and the coroner. Fourteen deaths were attributed to opioid overdoses in 2017 in Wyoming County.
The topic sparked heated debate among council members in Luzerne County, where the decision to join the lawsuit passed by a narrow 6 to 4 vote. The concerns voiced by dissenters there prompted careful consideration among officials here.
“This was not an easy thing for us to do,” Commissioner Tom Henry said of the decision. “We were afraid that it might keep people who need opioids from getting the medicine.” The primary concern is that lawsuits will drive up the cost of prescription opiates and put them out of reach of legitimate users.
Nonetheless, the commissioners maintain that the county can no longer bear a cost that includes the toll on families whose lives have been adversely affected by addiction, related crimes, and death. The press release cites a federal study indicating that as many as one in seven people authorized for a first subscription of opiates are still using them a year later.
Commissioner Judy Mead related that one way to follow the trail of prescription opiates flooding a particular market are “dashboard statistics” based on an expected average use of legal drugs as simple as aspirin in any given community.
“When you have a population of 28,000 and there are 4,000 opioid prescriptions, something’s wrong,” said Henry.
The five major manufacturers of opiates listed as defendants in the lawsuit are Pedru Pharma, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Johns & Johns, Endo Health Systems, and Allergan, Activis and Watson Pharmaceuticals. Each, the lawsuit maintains, is guilty of misrepresenting to doctors and patients the high risk of addiction of common medicines like Oxycotin, Percocet, and their generic counterparts. The distributors were targeted for failing to properly monitor suspicious orders and distribution of opiates as required by law.
It is that failure, the commissioners concur, that has led to people addicted to and then cut off from a legitimate supply of prescription drugs to turn to crime to feed their habit and/or switch to less expensive but potentially even more dangerous street drugs like heroin.
None of the commissioners can predict the outcome of the lawsuit but felt that it was a necessary step. “If we are not part of it, we cannot pursue it,” Henry remarked.
“Counties across the state have been signing on to this lawsuit,” commissioner Ron Williams agreed. “We missed the boat with the tobacco lawsuit.”
Williams also suggested that, if the courts decide in favor of Baron & Budd and two other legal teams representing the counties, families devastated by the epidemic will have better recourse to pursue individual claims.