On Tuesday, the Brattleboro Selectboard decided to move back into an opioid national negotiating class, after opting out a week ago.
The class, which includes every town, city, and county in the country, is formed to seek comprehensive settlements with drug companies, distributors, and pharmacy chains involved in the lawsuit. In the meantime, the town will also proceed with an individual lawsuit.
The class includes more than 34,000 potential class members, managed by 49 counties and cities serving as class representatives, negotiating with up to 13 corporate defendants.
The members of the class have the right to vote on any proposed settlement with a majority of 75 percent approval. Also, being a part of the class will not prevent a town or city from bringing its own lawsuit, and a municipality can’t collect twice from the same defendant.
Companies manufacturing opioids convinced the medical community that these medications were not addictive and were purely beneficial. This belief raised the number of prescriptions and sales unwarrantedly, resulting in a mass misuse of these drugs, to the extent that this was identified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a public issue and named it an opioid crisis.
