“The opioid litigation will have the same dire effects on the rule of law as the tobacco deal.” It will also have cruel consequences for pain sufferers and other legitimate participants in the market. And the other problems: “a well-orchestrated media frenzy that advance the trial lawyer’s narrative over solid science,” and a cozy network of highly lucrative contracts between law firms and city/state governments that, to judge from the parallel tobacco episode, is likely to exert a corrupting influence on both public service and law. An article not to miss from a longtime friend of this blog [Law and Liberty]
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One of the real abuses of the tobacco litigation—let’s say I started up a new cigarette company–“Coffin Nails”–and I sold cigs under that brand name. I’d have to pay into the settlement.
I’ve always found it funny that until 1997 one of the largest tobacco re-sellers was the US Government. When I was in the Navy I was entitled to a cigarette ration. Cigarettes were included in rations during WW II, Korea and Vietnam, yet it was the “Evil Tobacco Companies” that were responsible for it all.