Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman ordered drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. to pay $572 million after finding that the consumer products giant fueled the state's opioid crisis.
According to a 42-page brief statement read by Judge Balkman, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had successfully proven that the defendants created a public nuisance by implementing misleading marketing campaigns about the narcotic painkillers.
Oklahoma wanted J&J to fund a $17 billion “abatement plan” which would last for 30 years and employ a range of measures including public education campaigns, addiction treatment services, and additional medical training to remedy the impacts of the opioid crisis. Judge Balkman was partially supportive of this measure and ordered J&J to pay $572 million immediately.
In a written ruling, Judge Balkman stated that the $572 million would be needed to carry out the state’s plan for an initial year. The judge also added that the state hadn’t presented enough evidence of the costs and time required in future years to provide funds beyond the first year. Following the ruling, the defendants released a statement that they are intending to appeal the ruling and believe they have strong grounds for doing so.
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.'
