A Quebec court has approved a class action against opioid makers for misleading users

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A Quebec Superior Court judge has authorized a lawsuit against 16 pharmaceutical companies for allegedly misleading consumers about the effectiveness and dangers of opioid drugs.

The lawsuit alleges that the companies knew how addictive the drug was, but deliberately misrepresented the dangers and lured users into addiction.

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“Traditionally, opioids have been used medically in a very limited way,” said Margo Siminovich, one of the attorneys who handled the lawsuit. “They have been used for palliative care, such as end-of-life care, cancer treatment or acute pain after surgery. Then, in the mid-1990s, a new narrative emerged.”

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This new narrative will help pharmaceutical companies promote opioids as safe for a wide range of chronic pain conditions, from headaches to back pain to rheumatoid arthritis, he said in an interview Tuesday. “Physicians were told that if they promoted opioids and didn't use them for their patients, they were harming their patients, and it just took off and became a huge industry.”

According to Siminovich, the plaintiff, representing the court, Jean-Francois Bourassa, has a typical story.

Bourassa, who owns a roofing company, was prescribed opioids in 2005 after suffering multiple fractures in a fall on the job. Over the next decade, he was prescribed a series of opioids, but says he was never warned of any dangers by a doctor or pharmacist, according to Judge Gary Morrison's April 10 ruling allowing the class action.

According to Morrison, by 2012, Burasa was prescribed a “maximal dose” but the drug's effects wore off in the years that followed. In 2017, he sought medical treatment for opioid addiction; It was then that he learned about the dangers of drugs.

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Bourassa was diagnosed with severe opioid use disorder and treated for his addiction at a Montreal hospital. After leaving the treatment program, he received another opioid prescription from his doctor at a lower dose; as a result, he was readmitted to a drug rehabilitation program in 2018.

In court, Bourassa described his experience with opioids as “hell on earth.”

The class action includes all people in Quebec who were prescribed opioid drugs made by the 16 defendant pharmaceutical companies and subsequently diagnosed with an opioid use disorder between 1996 and the present.

The opioids not included in the lawsuit are OxyContin and OxyNEO, which were the subject of a separate national lawsuit that was later settled and were used only in hospitals. Several companies that were named when the suit was first filed but had limited operations in Quebec had already settled.

Siminovich said he did not know how many people could join the class action lawsuit. About 15 percent of Quebecers are prescribed opioids each year, he said, and five to 10 percent of opioid users become addicted or dependent.

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The pharmaceutical companies named in the lawsuit opposed allowing the class action to proceed. They argued that the court treated all opioids as the same, that it offered no evidence that all opioid drugs are addictive, that the companies did not misrepresent their drugs, and that the proposed suit included companies representing the drugs that the plaintiffs had never used.

In an emailed statement, Sanofi Canada said the decision was “purely procedural.”

“This decision has nothing to do with Sanofi's disclaimer. Sanofi will continue to defend this matter,” the company said, declining to comment further.

Sandoz Canada said it is committed to doing business honestly. “We believe these claims are without merit and will vigorously dispute them,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Teva Canada said it “supports the safe and appropriate use of opioids under the supervision of healthcare professionals,” but declined to comment further, while Pfizer declined to comment.

None of the other companies named in the lawsuit responded to requests for comment from The Canadian Press. They are: Abbott Laboratories, Apotex, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada, Ethypharm, Janssen, Labratoire Atlas, Labratoire Riva, Labratoire Trianon, Pharmascience, Pro Doc, Purdue Pharma and Sun Pharma Canada.

Siminovich said he and his colleagues are waiting to see if the defendants will seek leave to appeal the warrant. He said he hopes some will settle, but he and his colleagues are prepared to go to court.

The lawsuit seeks $30,000 in compensatory damages for each class member, plus additional damages to be determined on an individual basis, as well as a total of $25 million in punitive damages.

The Quebec government has joined a separate lawsuit brought by the British Columbia government against dozens of opioid manufacturers. The suit seeks billions of dollars in health care costs related to the opioid crisis.

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