Another settlement in the ongoing lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry over opioids was announced in September 2021. The Cherokee Nation’s opioid lawsuit against Big Pharma distributors was settled at the end of September for $75 million. It’s the largest settlement in Cherokee’s history.
The Cherokee Nation is the sovereign government of a Native American tribe that has nearly 400,000 people within the United States. The original lawsuit was filed in the court system of the Cherokee Nation, rather than the U.S. federal court system. Had the case continued through the legal process, the issues of jurisdiction would have had to be resolved along with the matter of the opioid scandal itself.
In 2017, the Cherokee Nation officials first formally accused pharmacies and drug distributors of flooding their communities with opioid pills. The original lawsuit said that over 200 million of the painkiller pills were distributed within the tribal territory in 2 years. That amounts to a mind-boggling total of 153 pills per person.
The painkillers are highly addictive and previous lawsuits filed by state governments have charged that the pharmaceutical industry knew exactly what it was doing—hiding the addictive nature of the medication in order to prey on people in pain, and then cashing in once they were hooked.
The settlement in this case came with 3 companies: McKesson, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. and Cardinal Health. The $75 million will be paid over a period of time.
Chuck Hoskin, the principal chief of Cherokee Nation, has vowed to use the money to invest in mental health and other rehab programs that will help people recover.
Sara Hill, an attorney for Cherokee Nation, gave the 3 pharmaceutical companies credit for attempting to rectify the damage.
“We are grateful that these distributors share our desire to solve this problem. We believe today’s settlement will do more to help solve this problem…than continued litigation.”
The settlement is a step forward, but other litigation remains in the system. The Cherokee Nation still has claims against major pharmacy outlets—Walmart, Walgreens and CVS—still pending. As of now, these cases are on track to go to trial in the fall of 2022.
