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OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is expected to file for bankruptcy after settlement talks over the nation's deadly overdose crisis hit an impasse, attorneys general involved in the talks said Saturday.
The breakdown puts the first federal trial over the opioid epidemic on track to begin next month, likely without Purdue, and sets the stage for a complex legal drama involving nearly every state and hundreds of local governments.
Purdue, the family that owns the company and a group of state attorneys general had been trying for months to find a way to avoid trial and determine Purdue's responsibility for a crisis that has cost 400,000 American lives over the past two decades.
An email from the attorneys general of Tennessee and North Carolina, obtained by The Associated Press, said that Purdue and the Sackler family had rejected two offers from the states over how payments under any settlement would be handled and that the family declined to offer counterproposals.
"As a result, the negotiations are at an impasse, and we expect Purdue to file for bankruptcy protection imminently," Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein wrote in their message, which was sent to update attorneys general throughout the country on the status of the talks.
[...] The impasse in the talks comes about six weeks before the scheduled start of the first federal trial under the Cleveland litigation, overseen by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster. That trial will hear claims about the toll the opioid epidemic has taken on two Ohio counties, Cuyahoga and Summit.
A bankruptcy filing by Purdue would most certainly remove the company from that trial.
The bankruptcy judge would have wide discretion on how to proceed. That could include allowing the claims against other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacies to move ahead while Purdue's cases are handled separately. Three other manufacturers have already settled with the two Ohio counties to avoid the initial trial.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Barenflimski on Tuesday September 10 2019, @05:02AM (9 children)
What Purdue and the rest did wasn't right but I think this misses the point. People do drugs for their mental health. People are lonely and bored with not a lot of options. When people become lonely and there is nothing else to do but watch TV, they do drugs en masse. Does bankrupting Purdue help the people?
These types of lawsuits don't end up accomplishing much. Some lawyers will get name recognition. A lot of money will trade hands by politicians, governments and corporations. Some new laws will be made. A few DA's will be promoted. Everyone involved will talk about what they did to solve the Opiate crisis. A very small amount of this money will actually go to helping anyone directly.
If I am to believe this is to help the people, I expect drug treatment houses will spring up every mile through West Virginia and Ohio providing free care until these addictions are undone. We all know that isn't going to happen. What will happen is the money will be handed over to the governments. People will be told they are drug addicts and that by relying on the states for money and support they are terrible people. Medications will be more expensive and there will be one less player in the already corrupt drug market. In the end the people still alive still lose.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 10 2019, @06:05AM (2 children)
Say... what? Who the fuck needs TV today?
Even the very existence of the incel masses disproves you, they did find a way of life that doesn't involve physical presence; if they can be alone without being lonely, so can others.
Can have HD porn streamed without effort.
Have heaps of free-to-play games.
Have heaps of forums to troll and heaps of decent people to doxx and SWAT. And you can find nutjobs on the Internet for any and all style of nuttyness, flat-earthers and alt-right included.
You can express your cavernous** existence on Twitter and YouTube and Instagram and... and still get some income from ads.
Worse come to worst, you can go school-shooting and stream your 30 minutes of fame on the internet and you'll still generate interest.
(large grin)
---
*** that's worse than empty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday September 10 2019, @01:46PM (1 child)
Um, I think the whole point of the involuntary part of "incel" is that they *can't* be alone without being lonely...
Plenty of people can't get laid, but I've only ever heard the incel moniker pointed at the ones who are vocally bitter about the situation.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 10 2019, @08:01PM
Actually, I don't think "incel" has a well defined meaning, and I heard it used for someone with only the justification that the speaker (well, writer) didn't like them.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @07:09AM (4 children)
Some of us do drugs for our physical health. As in the kind where the doctor looks at the x-rays and says, "Yeah, that's almost bone on bone. How are you still walking?" and I reply, "the hydrocodone really does help, Doc." Of course, I don't get any of that horrible horrible life-permitting stuff anymore.
Soon I'll probably be using the medical marijuana. Since every pot smoker I ever met was a, well, pothead (that is, moron), I suppose I'll soon have to send back my Mensa card. At least maybe I'll finally start to fit in down at the Walmart once my brain dies.
I know you're all tired of my AC bitching about this. Soon I'll be too stupid to type and you won't have to read about it anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @11:19AM (1 child)
And then out of desperation you turn to hypnosis and discover you can teach your brain to ignore the pain signals. Then you attempt to rebuild your life while hating the medical industry. A few months of $100 sessions or a life long drug additction with side effects. Your choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11 2019, @05:37AM
I'm teaching my brain to ignore stupid posts but it won't stick. Any suggestions?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rupert Pupnick on Tuesday September 10 2019, @05:19PM
Seriously? I think you might be overreacting a bit.
Has every non-pot smoker you've ever met been someone who completely abstains from cannabis?
How could you tell without asking?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @05:58PM
Yes, you'll become a walking stereotype as soon as you touch the devil's lettuce.
Or maybe you're just becoming a senile old man and that's why you need help to eat jello.
(Score: 4, Informative) by barbara hudson on Tuesday September 10 2019, @07:31PM
It's never been shown that drugs help depression, despite their use for 60 years. The UN has recommended that people stop that shit of medicalizing depression.
It's time we realize that people will be depressed when their lives go to shit, and drugging their brains so it doesn't bother them so much doesn't fix the underlying problems, which are almost always socio-economic in nature.
If antidepressants cured depression, we wouldn't have more than 10% of the world's adult population on them, and on a treadmill of ever-increasing doses and changes in drug cocktails.
The whole "dopamine-serotonin" link has never been proven. People with naturally low levels of serotonin in the brain aren't depressed. It's a fairy tail, and people are getting permanently fucked up by it, same as Oxycontin.
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