As the sprawling, nationwide opioid lawsuits come to an end with massive settlement payouts going to local and state governments, the families who had lost loved ones to addiction and overdose have been heard for the first time. As part of the deal to end litigation against Purdue Pharma and its billionaire founding Sackler family, an extraordinary hearing took place that for the first time allowed victims’ families to confront three members of the family to express their pain and range and how they suffered. More than 600,000 Americans died from a drug overdose over the past two decades, many after becoming addicted to prescription painkillers such as those sold by Purdue and aggressively marketed as non-addictive. Speakers held up photos of the dead and hurled invectives at the Sacklers, cursed them for their greed, and called them cruel, callous, and murderers as the Sackler family watched and listened impassively on Zoom, not saying a word (by agreement, one family member was allowed to have the camera turned on). The Sacklers will pay nearly $6 billion over 18 years to settle thousands of cases against Purdue, but have never admitted responsibility for contributing to the opioid crisis, and are shielded from further civil lawsuits. The majority of money from all the cases—which include other drug manufacturers, as well as drug distributors and pharmacy chains—will go toward drug prevention and treatment programs, but the Purdue settlement also includes compensation for individual victims and parents of children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, ranging from $3,000 to $48,000. As this sad chapter in American public health comes to an end, it’s time to focus on an addiction and overdose epidemic that is still raging—and requires our immediate attention.
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Rosenthal Center for AddictIon Studies