NORTHAMPTON — Mayor David Narkewicz announced Wednesday that the city will take part in a national lawsuit against major pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors for their role in the opioid epidemic.
“Obviously, the opioid epidemic has had a significant impact on Northampton,” Narkewicz said. “Not only have countless individual lives been affected, but the city has been affected as well in terms of the resources we have devoted to addressing the issues being created.”
Northampton will join Greenfield, Easthampton and more than 30 other municipalities across the state that have agreed to take part in the lawsuits. On Dec. 14, Greenfield became the first community in Massachusetts to file such a lawsuit when it submitted a 163-page complaint in the U.S. District Court in Springfield.
Peter Merrigan of Sweeney Merrigan Law said his firm is one of three in Massachusetts and nine nationally that are coordinating the “mass tort litigations.”
“The only way to bring compassionate change is unfortunately though litigation such as this one,” Merrigan said. “The companies are so powerful that without banding together one individual can’t have a voice.”
The mass tort litigation is not a class-action lawsuit, but rather a collection of lawsuits filed on behalf of individual municipalities claiming different, but related damages. The pretrial and defendant discovery process will be consolidated through a law office in Cleveland, Merrigan said.
If damages are awarded, the money would reimburse a city or town for costs incurred fighting addiction, and abate future costs of handling the public health crisis. These include emergency services, addiction treatment, law enforcement, the opioid-overdose antidote naloxone (marketed under the name Narcan), and other costs related to addiction.
According to Narkewicz, Sweeney Merrigan Law reached out to the city late last year, and the decision to join the lawsuit came after weeks of discussion. Like all municipalities, Northampton will not pay to be part of the suit; the law firms will collect 25 percent of the settlement if the case is won. Cities and towns will retain the right to accept or reject settlement offers, or go to trial, Merrigan said.
“Very few cities would have the financial resources to take on a case like this,” Narkewicz said.
Easthampton and Northampton are currently drafting their complaints, while Woburn, Revere and Methuen have already filed complaints, according to Merrigan.
Easthampton Mayor Nicole LaChapelle signed the paperwork to declare Easthampton a participant in the lawsuit during her first week in office in January.
“The lawsuit made so much sense because I felt it was a great way, on the most local level, to combat the issue of addiction,” LaChapelle said. “As mayor, I felt this was such a good way to speak up, and speak out against the corporations who well know how addictive these drugs can be.”
From her time working in Greenfield in the late 1990s, she knew of the work being done in Franklin County by Merrigan, his father Thomas Merrigan and brother Johnathan Merrigan through their law firm to combat addiction.
“It’s a family affair, an army of Merrigans,” LaChapelle said.
The Massachusetts Opioid Litigation Attorneys consortium is filing the mass tort litigations on behalf of Massachusetts taxpayers. The consortium is made up for three Massachusetts law firms: Sweeney Merrigan Law; Rodman, Rodman & Sandman; and Kopelman & Paige.
“The litigation focuses on the wholesale distributors and manufacturers of opioids and their role in the diversion of millions of prescription opiates into the illicit market which has resulted in opioid addiction, abuse, morbidity and mortality,” states a contract presented to the South Hadley Select Board, which mirrors the one presented to Northampton. “There is no easy solution and no precedent for such an action against this sector of the industry.”
The lawsuit names three of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies as defendants: McKesson Corp., AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., and Cardinal Health.
A spokesman for the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, which represents those three pharmaceutical distributors, among others, said the lawsuit is misguided.
“The misuse and abuse of prescription opioids is a complex public health challenge that requires a collaborative and systemic response that engages all stakeholders,” John Parker said in a statement.
“Given our role, the idea that distributors are responsible for the number of opioid prescriptions written defies common sense and lacks understanding of how the pharmaceutical supply chain actually works and is regulated. Those bringing lawsuits would be better served addressing the root causes, rather than trying to redirect blame through litigation.”
Merrigan said these companies rank in the top 15 of the Fortune 500 companies, making up about 85 percent of the pharmaceutical industry market share and earning a combined revenue of about $490 billion last year.
“They’ve been able to achieve a lot of these profits at the expense of our communities,” said Merrigan, a Greenfield native.
The lawsuit claims “unlawful conduct” by distributors and manufacturers of prescription drugs under the Controlled Substance Act of 1970. Under federal law, drug distributors are required to report orders of unusual size or frequency to the Drug Enforcement Administration, while manufacturers allegedly marketed and misrepresented the addictive drugs.
According to the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, drug distributors report every opioid order to the DEA regardless of suspicion.
“We are dedicated to doing our part as a distributor to mitigate the diversion of these drugs without interfering with clinical decisions made by doctors, who interact directly with patients and decide what treatments are most appropriate for their care,” read a statement from AmerisourceBergen. “Beyond our reporting and immediate halting of tens of thousands of potentially suspicious orders, we refuse service to customers we deem as a diversion risk and provide daily reports to the DEA that detail the quantity, type, and the receiving pharmacy of every single order of these products that we distribute.”
AmerisourceBergen’s statement added that the distribution of opioid-based products accounts for about 2 percent of the company’s sales.
About 2 million people in the U.S. are said to be addicted to prescription painkillers, and at least another half million to heroin, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 42,249 deaths involved opioids nationally in 2016. In Hampshire County, opioids accounted for 222 deaths between 2000 and 2016, according to state Department of Public Health data.
Last year in Massachusetts, there were an estimated 1,977 deaths attributed to opioid use, according to the state health department. According to a state health report released this month, 6,667, or 4.1 percent, of the 161,816 residents in Hampshire County receive a Schedule II opioid prescription.
The DEA defines Schedule II drugs as having a “high potential for abuse,” and include drugs like Vicodin, methamphetamines, OxyContin and Adderall.
MOLA comprises three of the nine law firms working on the case nationally. Others are Florida, West Virginia, Texas and Mississippi.
“This is going to take a lot of work,” Merrigan said. “We’re dealing with a lot of municipalities and dealing with a lot of different damage models.”