Taking Opioid Drug Manufacturers to Task

I recently authored an opinion editorial in the Commercial Appeal about the devastating opioid crisis in Tennessee.  You can read it here.

The cost of this deadly and wide-ranging epidemic is astronomical.  Some estimates place the cost at $87 billion per year.  Across the country community hospitals, police departments, the court system, jails, prisons, health insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid have all endured enormous costs.

Essentially, I argue in the editorial that governmental entities should go on the offensive and bring lawsuits against drug makers who deliberately misled doctors and the American people.

It’s time to make the drug companies who created this crisis pay for the harm they caused.