Manufacturers and distributors on trial in New York over the opioid crisis

New York, Jun 29 (EFE) .- Several large pharmaceutical companies and drug distributors in the United States are facing a trial since Tuesday in New York for their role in the opioid crisis, one of the most anticipated processes in this field .
The trial will be the first for the opioid crisis whose outcome will be in the hands of a jury and, unlike others, includes the entire production and supply chain of drugs that is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and cases of addiction in recent years.
“The eyes of the world are on New York today as we prepare to expose the cruel and deadly pattern of misconduct that these companies perpetrated,” New York State Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Tuesday.
The State Attorney’s Office joined Nassau and Suffolk Counties (in the Long Island region) to bring drug companies and distributors to justice in a mega-lawsuit in which the companies are accused of having contributed to the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers and the addiction of thousands more.
On the bench are, among others, the manufacturers Teva, Endo International and Abbvie, along with distribution companies such as Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen.
The multinational Johnson & Johnson (J&J), which was among the defendants, agreed this weekend to pay 230 million dollars and leave the opiate business in the US to get rid of the process.
Others, like Purdue Pharma, maker of the addictive drug OxyContin, will also not participate, having declared bankruptcy after thousands of lawsuits against them over opiates.
Meanwhile, several drug store chains such as CVS, Rite Aid and Walmart were also originally in the case, but they have ended up falling, with CVS reaching a settlement with prosecutors and no information on the other two.
Despite this, the trial involves so many parties that instead of in a courtroom it will take place in the auditorium of a university, where hundreds of witnesses are expected to pass, in a process of several months.
The New York attorney general denounced that the “opiate epidemic has wreaked havoc” in the state for more than two decades and stressed that, although no financial compensation will be able to compensate for the pain caused, it is hoped to be able to obtain funds from those responsible with the to support affected communities.
According to the United States authorities, between 1999 and 2019 almost half a million people died in the country from opioid overdoses.
In recent years, the main production companies have faced a multitude of complaints, which in some cases have resulted in multi-million dollar compensation.
Last October, for example, Purdue struck a $ 8.34 billion settlement with the Justice Department and formally admitted its role in the devastating opioid crisis.
Currently, there are at least two other lawsuits ongoing in the country, in California and West Virginia.

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