{"id":17603,"date":"2019-08-17T20:15:42","date_gmt":"2019-08-17T20:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=17603"},"modified":"2019-08-18T04:16:56","modified_gmt":"2019-08-18T04:16:56","slug":"shouldnt-there-be-a-law-against-reckless-opioid-sales-turns-out-there-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/shouldnt-there-be-a-law-against-reckless-opioid-sales-turns-out-there-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Shouldn\u2019t there be a law against reckless opioid sales? Turns out, there is"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicolas Paul Terry<\/a>, IUPUI<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The massive scale of prescription opioid shipments as the ongoing overdose epidemic unfolded has started to come into focus.<\/p>\n

Drug companies shipped 76 billion opioid pain pills<\/a> to U.S. health care professionals, hospitals and pharmacies between 2006 and 2012, according to data The Washington Post<\/a> and the Charleston Gazette-Mail\u2019s owner<\/a> acquired by suing the government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of pills per person were delivered to rural areas like Wise County, Kentucky<\/a>, and the town of Norton, Virginia<\/a>. Meanwhile, the number of fatal overdoses<\/a> involving all kinds of prescription opioids soared across all of Appalachia and other hotspots<\/a> as the national death toll climbed from 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition, a federal court in Cleveland has released scores of previously sealed documents<\/a>. The corporate memos and legal depositions<\/a> suggest that drug company executives, pharmacists and others involved at every level of the prescription opioid trade failed to heed troubling signs that the industry was facilitating drug abuse.<\/p>\n

As a health law professor who studies the relationship between the U.S. health care system and opioid overdoses<\/a>, I have researched<\/a> the epidemic\u2019s causes. In particular, I have researched the likely liability of drugmakers and pharmaceutical distributors<\/a> in the multiple pending and resolved federal<\/a> and state<\/a> lawsuits filed against all of the industry\u2019s key players.<\/p>\n

One thing that I\u2019ve often wondered about is why no law on the books could slow what now appears to have been the reckless oversupply of opioids by companies in the health care business.<\/p>\n