Opioid lawsuit echoes this country's legal history with big tobacco

WASHINGTON (SBG) - It seems no state has been untouched, no community shielded from the devastating impact of this country’s opioid epidemic and cities and states are often left to foot the bill for things like health care, addiction treatment and education.

"It’s a big lift for the state. But if we don’t make those services, if we don’t make that counseling, those rehabilitation opportunities available, we’re not going to get through this," saidMike Hunter, Oklahoma Attorney General.

The Oklahoma lawsuit, in which a judge sided Monday with the state against drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, finding the company liable in helping to fuel the opioid epidemic. This will be followed by a much bigger one this fall withmore than 2,000 cases brought by cities and counties nationwide consolidated in an Ohio federal court.

Peter Meyers, a Professor Emeritus at theGeorge Washington University School of Law, compared the suit to what we saw with big tobacco decades ago.

“Individuals were trying to sue the tobacco companies over cancer to love one another types of problems unsuccessfully for decades. Once the states got involved it was a game-changer.”

Some believe the states have an even stronger case this time around, with evidence of decades of deceit by U.S. Pharmaceutical Companies.

Research from the National Institutes of Health detailed a systematic effort to minimize the risk of opioids, including at least one company training sales representatives to “carry the message that the risk of addiction was ‘less than one percent.’”

Meyers said the finger can and should be pointed at the drug industry, but also at doctors and federal regulators/

"We have a federal agency in the Drug Enforcement Administration that’s supposed to monitor this and I think many people would say, and I agree that they really failed in that job of oversight in this whole area," Meyers said in an interview Monday.

PhRMA, the lobbying group that represents the drug industry, declined to comment for this story.

And despite today's ruling, this is far from over, with the case in Ohio on the horizon and a new suit filed against two major drug manufacturers by the state of West Virginia.