Johnson & Johnson Found Liable for Opioid Crisis in Oklahoma

On Ausut 26, 2019, a court found Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen liable for Oklahoma’s opioid crisis in the first ruling in the US against a drug manufacturer relating to the epdemic. The Court ordered the company to pay $572 million - based on Oklahoma's costs for one year of combatting the crisis for its misleading marketing and promotion of opioids that created a nuisance that compromised the health and safety of thousands of Oklahomans increasing rates of addiction, overdose deaths and neonatal abstinence syndrome. The ruling also noted that defendants repeatedly downplayed the risks of addiction to opioids, training sales representatives to tell doctors the risk was 2.6% or less if the drugs were prescribed by a doctor and targeted physicians who prescribed a high amount of opioids. Click here to read more about the decision.