By Howard Packowitz
BLOOMINGTON – McLean County government’s attempt to recover costs tied to the opioid epidemic targets dozens of drug manufacturers and distributors, including the family-owned maker of the addictive painkiller OxyContin.
A lawsuit, filed earlier this month in McLean County Court, seeks financial damages from eight members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma.
The New York Times reported Tuesday night the Sacklers would relinquish control of the company and pay $3 billion of their own money to settle thousands of state and federal lawsuits. The Times cited a source familiar with the negotiations.
The local lawsuit also names opioid-maker Johnson & Johnson, which was on the losing end Monday of a landmark $572 million judgment in Oklahoma.
The McLean County suit quotes Purdue’s top executive, Dr. Richard Sackler, as saying at a company party in 1996 that “the launch of OxyContin tablets “will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition.”
“The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense, and white,” Sackler allegedly said.
Over a five year period ending in October 2017, the suit claims there were 35.5 million doses of opioid-based medications in the county, or 206 doses for every resident. The lawsuit claims 40 people died in McLean County two years ago from opioid overdoses.
“This case arises from the worst man-made epidemic in modern medical history – the misuse, abuse, and over prescription of opioids,” the lawsuit said.
The McLean County Board in July approved State’s Attorney Don Knapp’s request to hire private attorney Melissa Sims and the Sanders Phillips Grossman law firm to handle the litigation. The firm will be paid a quarter of the damages awarded in the lawsuit.
A case management conference before McLean County Judge Paul Lawrence is scheduled for January 2.
Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]
