Cancer related to smoking cigarettes surfaced in the 1950’s and over the next 40 years lawsuits were filed by individuals and States. Finally in the 1990‘s Attorney Generals of 46 States sued the Tobacco Industry under the State Consumer Protection and antitrust laws. The end result was the establishment of a fund from the Tobacco Industry to compensate States for health-care costs.

I see a direct correlation with the current Opioid Addiction crisis. The Tobacco Industry promoted their product as safe and nonaddictive despite the fact that they knew this to be untrue.

Purdue Pharma introduced Oxycontin in 1995. It was Purdue Pharma’s breakthrough palliative for chronic pain. Under a marketing strategy that Arthur Sackler had pioneered decades earlier, the company aggressively pressed doctors to prescribe the drug. The drug was promoted as non-addictive and was good for a 12 hour window. Both claims have been proven false.

The 12-hour schedule does not adequately control pain, as it is only good for 8 hours, resulting in withdrawal symptoms including intense craving for the drug thus creating an addiction.

Purdue was aware of this problem even before the drug went to market but held fast to the claim of 12-hour relief, in part to protect its revenue. Oxycontin brought in billions to Purdue Pharma over the years. No intervention was made by Purdue to contact the DEA despite knowing of the practice of black market sales of the drug out of legal pharmacies resulting in the overuse and sale of Oxycontin.

Kentucky and West Virginia have brought law suits resulting in settlements of $24 million and $10 million respectively. Finally in late 2017 Purdue Pharma reduced its large sales force and stopped visiting Doctors offices to push Oxycontin. That is over 20 years after Purdue Pharma knew of Oxycontin’s addictive properties. In May 2007 the company pleaded guilty to misleading the public about Oxycontin’s risk of addiction and agreed to pay $600 million in one of the largest pharmaceutical settlements in U.S. history. The company’s president, top lawyer, and former chief medical officer pleaded guilty to misbranding charges, a criminal violation, and agreed to pay a total of $34.5 million in fines. In addition three top executives were charged with a felony and sentenced to 400 hours of community service in drug treatment programs. These fines and settlements amount to a pittance, $670 million total, in relation to the amount they made from the drug over the years. The wealth of the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, exceeds $13 billion.

In Maine, at least one person a day dies of a drug overdose, increasingly from heroin and fentanyl, the illegal opioids that many people turn to after they become addicted to Oxycontin and can no longer get another prescription. Over 15,000 received treatment in 2015 while another 25,000 did not due to limited resources.

Janet Mills is the Maine Attorney General and a member of the Task Force to Address the Opioid Crisis in the State of Maine and the Maine Opiate Collaborative.

One of the things the Task Force hoped to see happen: “Reign in prescribing practices that encourage addiction and put opioids in the hands of people who misuse and divert them. A new law to monitor and limit opioid prescriptions, proposed by the governor and enacted in 2016, is a good beginning, but analyzing prescribing trends and providing better training for prescribers will further reduce overprescribing and diversion.”

Addiction is an illness. Addicts are not criminals, but resort to illegal acts to support their addiction. Of those in the American prison system almost half are there on drug charges. They are not criminals and do not need to be incarcerated. They need supportive programs to help them regain a life without opioids. They may however need a drug to help the forever changed brain to overcome the continual craving that an opioid class of drugs created. Theirs and their loved ones lives have been forever changed. They need acceptance and help. It requires an open heart and an open wallet. Everyone has the ability to open their heart and Purdue Pharma needs to be providing the wallet. It is the Sackler family’s, owners of Purdue Pharma, moral responsibility.

Purdue Pharma needs to pay for providing addiction treatment programs and education to cover health-care costs in each State just as the Tobacco Industry has been made to do. The Attorney Generals of each state need to work together like they did against the Tobacco Industry.

Chris Wolfe lives in Freeport.