What equals justice for opioid crisis: Help victims or punish Big Pharma?

As hundreds of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retailers chug through the U.S. legal system, a trio of recent decisions gives a hint of what may be coming.

While the substantial payouts will help states fund treatment and other services, the drug companies involved in both settlements have denied any wrongdoing, and experts say the settlement amounts are not large enough to change corporate behavior. That underscores a key question: What does justice look like? Is it most important that drug companies are held accountable, or compelled to change? That the public understands where the blame lies, and why? Or is it more important that resources to combat the problem are mobilized so the suffering can end?

“You might say one of the essential functions the courts can play is where one party can hold another to account,” says Adam Zimmerman, an associate professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and an expert in the type of multidistrict litigation (MDL) being used in Cleveland. “To not have some kind of adjudication about what happened and who did what and who’s responsible, it feels like something’s lost there.”

But for communities struggling to cover the tremendous public costs of the opioid crisis…

Click here to read the full article.

• ← Texas Republicans wanted a no-drama session. Here’s what happened.
• How ‘When They See Us’ is affecting views of justice system →