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By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

The City of Somerville recently filed a lawsuit against 19 opioid manufacturers and distributors that we believe engaged in deceptive and illegal practices to increase sales and generate profit at the expense of patients.

Unfortunately, here in Somerville we are all too familiar with the toll the opioid epidemic has on communities. We have seen the number of lives lost to opioid overdoses rise from 3 in 2010 to a high of 21 in 2016. And those are just the ones we know about because local emergency personnel responded. Along with the tragedy of each death, the impact of those lives lost reverberates in the community. Each of those people had family, friends – people who cared about them. Their lives will never be the same.

We also know that fatal overdoses only tell part of the story. The CDC estimates that for every opioid-related death, there are another 733 persons misusing opioids.

As part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Commonwealth, the Attorney General’s Office has documented that opioid industry companies have tried to absolve themselves of responsibility in this public health crisis by blaming patients. But we believe that defendants in this suit purposefully misrepresented the benefits and risks of opioids. Doctors and patients were allegedly led to believe that opioids were safer and less addictive than we now know them to be.

As a City, we have a responsibility to respond to the public health crisis caused by the opioid companies, and we take that responsibility very seriously. It takes significant resources to do so. It takes significant investments to do so. It takes an emotional toll on staff wellbeing as well to do so. But it is our duty and our priority.

We’ve taken many actions locally to provide needed support to those facing addiction in Somerville, and here are just a few examples:

• We established the Community Outreach, Help, and Recovery (COHR) Office, which provides resource referrals and intensive support to residents struggling with the disease of addiction and to their families.
• Our COHR Office offers training citywide to City staff and members of the public on a variety of critical topics around addiction and mental health.
• Our City has trained all of our police officers, fire fighters, and EMTs to use Narcan, and we’ve supplied our public safety officers with it so they have the best chance to save the life of an overdose victim on emergency calls. In 2018 we know at least 203 doses were administered in Somerville by a combination of first responders and non-first responders. Without it, our overdose death toll would surely have been higher.
• We also have a responsibility to prevent addiction before it starts. For that we have another office, the Somerville Office of Prevention, as well as other initiatives and staff. The Office of Prevention, for example, works alongside Somerville Public Schools staff with our students around preventing opioid misuse and making sure students affected by the opioid crisis get the support they need.
• And the list of our efforts goes on: intervention training for police, youth outreach programs for prevention, job training programs for those in recovery, recovery coach training to aid in long-term progress, coordination with local providers to improve access to detox beds, and more.

The community has also joined the City in efforts to combat the devastating fallout of the opioid crisis. Family and friends have started organizations in honor of their loved ones lost to the opioid epidemic. They fundraise for treatment and prevention programs and share resources and offer support and comfort to one another.

Out of necessity, residents have also sought training to administer Narcan and keep a dose with them, and our staff has worked hard to promote and support these training opportunities. Think about that for a moment: ordinary citizens, often the loved ones of those who are using, have had to learn an emergency medical procedure to be ready to counteract the deadly effects of the opioid crisis. I can’t imagine how traumatizing it must be to have to administer Narcan to a family member or friend, let alone the stress of knowing you must always be at the ready.

To be clear, Somerville is committed to doing everything we can to support those facing addiction. But it shouldn’t be this way. Limited City and school and public safety resources and time shouldn’t have to be diverted to combat a health crisis that we believe could have been avoided – or at least significantly reduced – had these 19 companies not put profit over people as our lawsuit alleges. Of course, despite all our efforts, there is so much more that is needed, and our hope is that legal action will help us begin to repair the damage done by the opioid crisis and prevent it from happening again in any community.

Fortunately, Somerville is not alone in this fight. Other communities in Massachusetts and around the country have filed similar suits in an effort to demand accountability from the companies responsible for the opioid epidemic. And I want to thank Attorney General Maura Healey for filing a statewide lawsuit last year. The opioid crisis has ravaged communities across Massachusetts and we all deserve to finally get the truth from opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies.

These lawsuits won’t bring back those we have lost or repair the damage done to countless lives. But they are a step in holding the companies that we believe are responsible for and that profited from the opioid epidemic accountable.