Upending Purdue Pharma’s settlement does little to help today’s opioid crisis, advocates say

The drug policy world has been left torn by the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday that Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy deal could not move forward if it included legal protections for the company’s billionaire owners.

In one camp are those who were eager to see the agreed-upon $6 billion settlement put to work preventing and treating opioid addiction. In the other are those who found the prospect of shielding the Sackler family from civil lawsuits to be indefensible.

But there is a third camp, too: One that argues Purdue, its infamous pain drug OxyContin, and the overall scandal are of little relevance to today’s overdose epidemic, in which fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other illicit drugs combine to kill over 110,000 Americans each year.

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