Last month, the primary of an avalanche of complaints filed in opposition to the producers and distributors of opioid painkillers went to trial. The state of Oklahoma is attempting to persuade a court that drugmaker Johnson and Johnson is legally accountable for the epidemic of dependency and death due to opioids.
Oklahoma isn’t always alone. There is a countrywide movement across the nation and local governments to go after opioid manufacturers. At its center is attorney Mike Moore.
Moore says he’s “just a country legal professional from Mississippi.” But he has engineered the most moneymaking felony settlements in American history: the 1998 case in which Big Tobacco paid billions to deal with smoking-related fitness troubles, and the 2015 agreement with the massive oil company BP over its massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now Mike Moore, along with his legal allies, has aimed at the opioid enterprise. As we first suggested, past due remaining year, he says he has effective new proof that proves states like Ohio, a number of the toughest hit by the opioid epidemic, should collect billions from all the organizations he’s suing. Mike Moore: If we strive the Ohio case, if we win a verdict against those manufacturers and distributors, it can bankrupt them. It’d put them outta business.
Bill Whitaker: Truly? These are huge, worthwhile–
Mike Moore: Huge.
Bill Whitaker:-rich organizations.
Mike Moore: Well, you recognize– they may be as profitable as they need to. But– Ohio is losing $ $4 billion or $5 billion a year from the opioid epidemic. And they may be dropping 5,000 or 6,000 people in 12 months from overdose deaths. So when a jury hears the proof, in this case, they are not gonna award only a couple hundred million greenbacks. It can be $one hundred billion. And whoever among those groups thinks they could rise to that? Success.
Mike DeWine: We are hurting now in Ohio. We want to assist now in Ohio.
Mike DeWine is the Republican governor of Ohio. He became the nation’s attorney general previously, and he employed Mike Moore shortly after filing suit in opposition to opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Mike DeWine: They flooded the State of Ohio with those opioid tablets that they knew might kill humans.
Bill Whitaker: They might kill people.
Mike DeWine: If they didn’t realize it a primary couple of years, they, in reality, could’ve seen it after that. You cannot omit it. When twelve months, we had nearly a billion– one billion pain meds prescribed inside the state of Ohio, you realize, 69 according to the guy, woman, and infant inside the state. And that lies in the theft of the drug corporations. They’re those who did that.