Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to file a long-awaited lawsuit against makers and distributors of opioid painkillers is welcome. “It’s time the defendants paid for the pain and destruction they’ve caused,” Bondi declared in Tampa this week.
The lawsuit alleges the drug companies violated state laws by underplaying the dangers of opioids and distributing excessive quantities of the drugs. The attorney general said Florida could recover billions of dollars from the companies to pay for medical expenses and other costs of opioid addiction, as well as expand the supply of treatment for victims.
Ideally, the lawsuit will turn out like Florida’s case a generation ago against the tobacco industry. In 1997, Florida agreed to an $11 billion settlement with the industry. The settlement still pours more than $400 million a year into the state treasury.
But Florida’s leaders would be foolish to bank on a windfall from the lawsuit, which could play out over several years. Bondi, who will leave office in January, is expected to hand off responsibility for the case to her successor. And the companies she has targeted vehemently dispute the state’s allegations.
Florida has no time to waste waiting. The state is caught in a spiraling crisis from opioids, which include heroin as well as related legal and illegal painkillers. Mark Fontaine, the executive director of the Florida Drug and Alcohol Abuse Association, said it’s Florida’s “worst drug epidemic ever.”
State officials say at least 15 Floridians are dying each day from opioid addiction. The death toll in 2016, the last year for which annual totals are available, was 5,725, a 35 percent jump from the prior year. Preliminary figures from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement indicate the death toll rose further in 2017.
At an Editorial Board Florida Forward forum this week on the opioid crisis, the four panelists offered expertise in different areas, including medical research, law enforcement, prevention and treatment. But there was a clear consenus among the group that treatment for Floridians suffering from opioid addiction is critical.
In March, the Legislature passed a budget that increased funding for opioid treatment and education by $53 milllion, with more than half of the dollars coming from federal sources. Yet it’s not clear that this boost in state and federal funding will be enough to close the gap between the demand for treatment and its supply in Florida. A report from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that more than 1 million Floridians over the age of 12 needed but didn’t receive treatment for substance abuse in 2016.
And Florida took a big step backward recently in drug treatment for one of its populations most prone to addiction. State Corrections Secretary Julie Jones, facing a $50 million shortfall in her agency’s $2.4 billion budget, announced $22 million in cuts to treatment programs for prisoners and recently released inmates. The cuts will result in the loss of hundreds of beds, along with hundreds of jobs, at in-prison and community treatment centers across the state.
Prisoners or recently released inmates who lose access to substance-abuse treatment are more likely to relapse and return to prison. The Legislature’s failure to fund the Corrections Department adequately and protect treatment programs from these cuts will cost taxpayers much more in the long run.
On the federal level, Florida’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, introduced legislation this week that would expand the availability of drug treatment. Nelson’s bill would create 1,000 Medicare-supported medical residency positions to train doctors in addiction medicine, addiction psychiatry or pain management.
Nelson also has filed other bills on the issue, including one with Florida’s junior senator, Republican Marco Rubio, to improve the quality of care for babies born addicted to opioids. Like the state’s lawsuit, these initiatives are welcome, but their outcome is uncertain.
Hoping for the best from the lawsuit and from Washington doesn’t let legislators off the hook from addressing more pressing priorities. Those include reversing the cuts at Corrections, and seizing more opportunities to expand the supply of drug treatment in Florida.
