Sackler Family Members Face Mass Litigation And Criminal Investigations Over Opioids Crisis [View all]

[appalachiablue]

The Guardian, Exclusive: Suffolk county in Long Island has sued several family members, and Connecticut and New York are considering criminal fraud and racketeering charges against leading family members. Nov. 19, 2018.

Members of the multi-billionaire philanthropic Sackler family that owns the maker of prescription painkiller OxyContin are facing mass litigation and likely criminal investigation over the opioids crisis still ravaging America. Some of the Sacklers wholly own Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, the company that created and sells the legal narcotic OxyContin, a drug at the center of the opioid epidemic that now kills almost 200 people a day across the US.

Suffolk county in Long Island, New York, recently sued several family members personally over the overdose deaths and painkiller addiction blighting local communities. Now lawyers warn that action will be a catalyst for hundreds of other US cities, counties and states to follow suit.

At the same time, prosecutors in Connecticut and New York are understood to be considering criminal fraud and racketeering charges against leading family members over the way OxyContin has allegedly been dangerously over-prescribed and deceptively marketed to doctors and the public over the years, legal sources told the Guardian last week.

“This is essentially a crime family … drug dealers in nice suits and dresses,” said Paul Hanly, a New York city lawyer who represents Suffolk county and is also a lead attorney in a huge civil action playing out in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio, involving opioid manufacturers and distributors. The Sacklers are a wealthy but feuding clan.
-----
..Lawyers working on opioid litigation expect family members to be sued by name as part of the multi-district litigation in Ohio. Lawsuits have been filed by more than 1,200 cities, counties and municipalities in federal courts across the US, against Purdue and other corporate defendants.

The first trials are set next year in three significant cases from two Ohio counties and the city of Cleveland. Purdue is also being sued by at least 30 states in state court. It is widely expected that the parties will negotiate a very large global settlement like the approximate $250bn deal agreed in a 1997 landmark Big Tobacco case. - More.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/19/sackler-family-members-face-mass-litigation-criminal-investigations-over-opioids-crisis

US Drug Overdose Deaths Rose To Record 72,000 Last Year, Data Reveals
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/16/us-drug-overdose-deaths-opioids-fentanyl-cdc

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain. The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts. The New Yorker, Oct. 30, 2017.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain

Purdue launched OxyContin with a marketing campaign that attempted to counter this attitude and change the prescribing habits of doctors. The company funded research and paid doctors to make the case that concerns about opioid addiction were overblown, and that OxyContin could safely treat an ever-wider range of maladies. Sales representatives marketed OxyContin as a product “to start with and to stay with.” Millions of patients found the drug to be a vital salve for excruciating pain. But many others grew so hooked on it that, between doses, they experienced debilitating withdrawal.
Since 1999, two hundred thousand Americans have died from overdoses related to OxyContin and other prescription opioids. Many addicts, finding prescription painkillers too expensive or too difficult to obtain, have turned to heroin. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, four out of five people who try heroin today started with prescription painkillers.
>The most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that a hundred and forty-five Americans now die every day from opioid overdoses.