OPINION: Margaret A. Little - Opioid Litigation is Not the Cure for the Disease

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 Sunday, March 1, 2020 - 10:23

In short, opioid mass tort litigation is exhibiting the full-blown pathologies of an idea—regulation by litigation—that from its inception in the late 1990s flouted the rule of law, state, and federal constitutional provisions, and worst of all, effectuates and perpetrates tragically lethal and misguided public policy.

Boastfully modeled on the tobacco litigation of the late 1990s, opioids litigation is preordained to have an afterlife of maddeningly complex litigation clogging the courts like Kudzu. A robust and fearless reexamination of the mechanisms that have allowed such initiatives to exert such a lawless and powerful influence on our courts, our public governance, public health and our economy is long overdue.

Read more at Law & Liberty.

 

Margaret Little is a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and writer.