northjersey.com: Editorial: Taking the opioid fight to the courts

6/27/2017

The deadly opioid crisis that’s gripped New Jersey and the nation has many manifestations, and many causes. Treatment and prevention of the scourge have become an everyday part of the political lexicon, and a focus for Gov. Chris Christie during his final months in office.

What before now has been less talked about is how accountable drug makers should be held as we continue to explore more about the origins of a crisis that zoomed out of control relatively quickly, and continues to wreak havoc on Americans of all ages.

As State House Bureau reporter Dustin Racioppi reported last week, the state Attorney General’s Office has joined a multi-state investigation of the pharmaceutical industry for its potential role in the opioid crisis. The Record also learned that the office has issued a subpoena to Johnson & Johnson, the New Brunswick-based pharmaceutical company, related to the marketing practices for opioids by subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

Meanwhile, the opioid crisis has become one of the deadliest public health crises in modern American history. Drug overdoses, fueled mostly by heroin and other opioids, killed more than 52,000 people in 2015, more than the roughly 43,000 who died at the peak of the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1995. And the country appears on track to have exceeded 59,000 drug-related deaths last year, according to preliminary data analyzed by The New York Times.

Of course, the opioid crisis doesn’t affect just the addict, but friends and family members as well, emotionally and sometimes financially. If the addiction is strong enough, those hooked on opioids will resort to almost anything to get their next fix.

In short, the public needs to understand the depth of the problem in order to properly attack it. Part of that understanding has to do with finding out how and why so many painkillers were pushed into the market in the first place. To what degree the pharmaceutical industry is involved is not just a matter of accountability, but  also understanding exactly the size and scope of the crisis.

 

“New Jersey’s involvement in this multi-state effort is an essential step toward gaining a complete picture of the roots of this epidemic, and in determining whether and to what extent unlawful conduct by drug makers has been a contributor,” said New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino.

In recent years, The Record has documented in several stories the depth and expanse of the opioid epidemic in North Jersey, which ranges from its most wealthy suburbs to the ravaged streets of Paterson, affecting members of families of every economic bracket in between. When Christie announced his new initiatives to combat the crisis, he rightly pointed out that the opioid crisis knows no ZIP code.

We don’t yet know the full extent to which so-called “Big Pharma” may have been involved in starting or sustaining the crisis, but we hope that with multiple investigations under way, and several lawsuits filed — Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has sued five drug makers for allegedly misrepresenting the risk of opioids — a truer picture will begin to emerge.

In Washington, lawmakers should bear in mind the unusually large scope of the opioid crisis before they pass any bill to alter the Affordable Care Act, which provides funding through Medicaid with which to battle the addiction crisis. Meanwhile, a growing number of states, including New Jersey, have made  it clear they intend to fight the crisis on various fronts, even if they have to confront drug makers in order to do so.