Belknap County part of opioid suit against big pharma

LACONIA — Belknap County has joined five other counties in filing a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies, distributors, pharmacy chains and individual physicians for allegedly contributing to the opioid epidemic.

The suit, filed Tuesday, accuses the plaintiffs of “knowing and willful, unfair, deceptive and unlawful acts and practices” which has resulted in the counties and their communities wrongfully and unnecessarily incurring tremendous costs. The suit blames the opioid crisis on “corporate greed.”

Named in the suit — called a mass tort — are 17 pharmaceutical manufacturers, three pharmaceutical distributors, four large pharmacy chains, and one local physician.

The suit states that marketing efforts by pharmaceutical giants convinced doctors, the medical community and the public to believe the benefits of opioid use for common pain or chronic pain conditions while trivializing the risk of possible addiction.

“[The] manufacturers implemented a willful, knowing, sophisticated and highly deceptive marketing campaign that began in the late 1990s. The plan took root and deepened during or about 2006 and continues to the present. The goal [of the] effort was to make blockbuster profits,” the suit states in part.

While Laconia is not a party to this suit, it has signed on to a similar mass tort, City Manager Scott Myers said. The City Council approve joining that lawsuit in the late spring.

“The council felt there was some significant responsibility of some drug companies,” Myers explained. He also said the city joined the suit in the hope that it might recoup some of the damages caused by opioid addiction to city residents — "both in terms of cost and and human capital which has caused so much damage.”

Speaking about the suit the county joined, Belknap County Commissioner Hunter Taylor said drug companies “misled the public to the addictive possibilities” of opioids such as OxyContin and Percocet and generics like oxycodone and hydrocodone.

Taylor said he believed the push by the drug companies and some doctors was responsible for a significant amount of the opioid epidemic.

The local physician named in the suit is Dr. Michael Dipre, an internal medicine specialist at the Laconia Clinic.

“Dr. Dipre has been disciplined on multiple occasions for improper prescribing of opioids, due to overprescribing and improper maintenance of records indicating why these high volumes were prescribed. Dr. Dipre was instrumental in promoting opioids for sale in Belknap County and throughout New Hampshire,” the suit states.

Dipre had no comment.

Attorney Robert Bonsignore, who is representing Belknap County and the other governmental entities that are party to the suit, said in a press release that opioid abuse is the leading cause of death for people under 50. According to the release, studies have shown that people can become addicted to opioids in as few as three days and people on opioids for more than 30 days have a greater than 50 percent chance of becoming addicted.

Opioids have been the most widely prescribed class of drugs in the United States since 2009, the release states. According to the Attorney General’s office, in 2016, 424 people died from opioid-related overdoses in New Hampshire, an increase of about 7 percent from the prior year, when 397 opioid-related deaths were reported. The 2017 data is still being finalized, but the latest figures put the number at 428 opioid-related deaths. New Hampshire was ranked the third-highest state in the country for rates of deaths in in 2016, the release stated.

Bonsignore, who owns a home in Belmont, spoke to Belknap County commissioners earlier this year and urged the county to join the lawsuit, maintaining that the opioid epidemic is a national crisis that was artificially created by drug manufacturers and distributors.

Bonsignore said at the time that the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimated that 75 percent of the people who enter treatment for a heroin addiction took their first opioid legally from a prescription.

The suit charges the plaintiffs with violating New Hampshire’s consumer protection laws against deceptive business practices. Other charges are public nuisance, conspiracy, fraud, aiding and abetting, unjust enrichment, and negligence. The suit also asks that the plaintiffs be required to pay enhanced compensatory damages.