More than 10 years ago, a representative for a drug distributor wrote of the opioid products his company was receiving, “Keep ’em comin’! Flyin’ out of here. It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are. …”

In reply, a sales representative for Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals wrote, “Just like Doritos keep eating. We’ll make more.”

Many of these opioid painkillers went to drug addicts or, in some cases, created new ones. Some in the drug industry knew precisely what they were doing to earn big profits.

Some statistics were recently released through a lawsuit filed against more than 400 defendants – pharmacies, drug distributors, manufacturers and prescribers.

Many other lawsuits have been filed in attempts to make those responsible for the pain pill epidemic pay. Some have been settled.

Defendants in such cases are accused of intentionally “turning a blind eye” to the plague they knew they were helping to unleash – failing to do anything to ensure opioid pills were not being misused in exchange for continuing profits from them.

More Americas die of drug overdoses each year than were killed during the entire Vietnam War.

No amount of money will bring back the people killed by substance abuse. No cash settlement can repair all the damage done to families and communities. But should they be found liable for the beginnings of this epidemic, the companies at fault should be forced to pay the most the law will allow.

And where criminal culpability is found and proven, the guilty should be punished severely – as the greedy drug pushers they were.

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