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1/ This is the story of the monumental legal effort underway to hold pharmaceutical companies—and drug distributors—responsible for the opioid epidemic. read.medium.com/uAS823R
2/ By the numbers, the opioid crisis is staggering. In 2012, health care providers wrote enough painkiller prescriptions for every American adult to have a bottle of pills. cdc.gov/vitalsigns/pdf… 
3/ In 2017 alone, the CDC reported 72,000 overdose deaths due to the epidemic. That’s over four times the number of overdose deaths reported in 1999. cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr…
4/ And according to figures from the White House, in 2015 the U.S. spent an estimated $504 billion on health care, criminal justice, and other needs stemming from the epidemic. whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehou…
5/ At the center of the legal fight to seek justice for the epidemic is a man named Paul Farrell. He is a lead attorney with the National Prescription Opiate Litigation (NPOL), a collection of 1,500 cases that have been brought by communities across the country against Big Pharma
6/ The question central to their case: Who is responsible for the scourge of drug abuse gripping the country? read.medium.com/uAS823R
7/ The answer to that question is what makes the NPOL’s case different: they're not just going after pharma companies, but drug distributors, too. And drug distributors haven't been held legally accountable for their contribution to the epidemic—yet. read.medium.com/uAS823R
8/ This is the NPOL's legal strategy: Charge the makers and sellers of pain killers with causing a public nuisance, which the NPOL argues is “an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public.” read.medium.com/uAS823R
9/ If that strategy sounds familiar, it’s because that was the argument at the center of the 1990s litigation against tobacco companies, which ended in a $246 billion settlement.
10/ But will the strategy work here? The first trial brought by the NPOL is scheduled for September of this year, and will serve as a bellwether hinting out how future juries are likely to rule.
11/11 Based on the evidence they have, the legal team is confident that this will be the beginning of a reckoning. Read more about one of the biggest legal fights of the opioid epidemic: read.medium.com/uAS823R
