Opioid Litigation Threatens Industry’s Survival

Will the opioid crisis be similar to the tobacco one of the 1990s? Or even worse…?

In April 1994, the top executives of seven tobacco companies testified to a congressional hearing under oath that they didn’t believe nicotine was addictive. Over the next few years a flood of reports, studies and leaked internal documents emerged, revealing the opposite. Despite the testimony of the executive, it was widely known in the tobacco industry that nicotine was addictive at the time.

Three years later in 1997, the then-chief executives of Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp (Reynolds American) met with attorneys to begin settlement talks for the industry’s mounting legal woes. States were demanding billions in compensation for treating smoking-related illnesses and also wanted funding...