Cities, counties and Native American tribes across the nation are filing lawsuits against opioid manufacturers in an effort to recover damages from the widespread opioid epidemic.
The suits largely accuse pharmaceutical companies of aggressively pushing painkillers while falsely representing the danger of addiction, turning “patients into drug addicts for their own corporate profit,” one suit said.
In Kansas and Missouri, at least 16 cities and counties have filed suits. Nationwide, more than 400 separate lawsuits have been filed, according to The New York Times. The suits are reminiscent of those that led to the 1998 settlement between the five largest cigarette manufacturers and the attorneys general of 46 states, resulting in billions of dollars sent back to states and new restrictions on advertising, especially to kids.
But in the tobacco cases, a significant portion of that money never made it back to the communities that were directly affected.
So now, local governments are hoping to get a piece of potential billions in settlement money.
(Read more: Wichita Eagle)