Rural Colorado County Sues Top Pharmaceutical Companies and Distributors over Opioid Crisis

Huerfano County, a rural southern Colorado county, filed suit in federal court against the nation’s top pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers and distributors claiming that the companies are responsible for overdoes and death due to opioids.

The lawsuit claims that Huerfano County residents were falsely induced to take highly addictive opioids for pain management and that the opioid epidemic was cause by drug manufacturers who knowingly engaged in fraudulent and deceptive marketing and that drug distributors knowingly facilitated widespread opioid diversion.

Huerfano County, the first Colorado local government to file such a suit, is following a national trend that that aims to hold drug companies responsible for the deadly opioid epidemic. Chicago started the trend in 2014 and its case remains active. Recently, Philadelphia, Delaware West Virginia and New York also filed similar lawsuits.

Currently, federal judges are overseeing about 200 lawsuits against opioid makers and some would rather focus on curbing the opioid epidemic rather than refereeing the litigation, which could go on for years. Concerns are that if the crisis is not abated in 2018, an estimated 150 Americans will continue to die daily of opioid related deaths.