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Opioid makers, called “drug dealers,” gave $1 million to Florida officials over 20 years

The campaign contributions went overwhelmingly to Republicans, who have been slow to react to both phases of the opioid crisis.
 
Published May 18, 2018|Updated May 18, 2018

When she announced her lawsuit against some of the largest makers of opioids this week, Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed the companies would "pay" for what they'd done.

But for the last 20 years, they have been paying – to Florida politicians.

The nine companies and their subsidiaries she's suing have given more than $1 million to state lawmakers during the opioid crisis, nearly all of it – 89 percent – going to Republican candidates or Republican committees, a Times/Herald analysis shows.

The amounts to candidates have been relatively meager – the most that any one has received was $15,250.

But the money went far and wide, and went overwhelmingly to the Republican Party of Florida ($429,550) and the Republican State Leadership Committee ($225,000).

Bondi, like cities, counties and attorneys general across the country, have accused some of the biggest opioid makers and distributors of deceiving doctors and the public about the dangers of the pills, causing the deaths of thousands of Floridians. Republican Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco called them "drug dealers" at Tuesday's news conference.

Bondi accuses them of of violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, the Florida RICO Act and common law public nuisance.

But even she's been given money. In 2010, when she was running for attorney general, OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma wrote her a check for $500. When she ran for re-election four years later, opioid distributor McKesson cut a check for $1,000.

Gov. Rick Scott, also a Republican, has taken $6,000, records show, although his ties to one of the companies runs deeper.

None of the nine companies have given more than Johnson & Johnson, a mega-corporation whose subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, sold the opioids Nucynta and Tapentadol and routinely downplayed or ignored their risks of addiction, according to Bondi's complaint.

"The false statements and omissions by Janssen were made to Florida doctors, other prescribers, and consumers and led them to prescribe and consume Janssen's opioid products," the complaint states.

Johnson & Johnson and its employees have given $477,000.

Purdue Pharma, which also makes the opioid Dilaudid, marketed to veterans, according to the complaint, publishing an article featuring a veteran without mentioning the dangers of taking benzodiazepines, a sedative often used to treat PTSD, with opioids. The combination can lead to fatal overdoses.

The article “also encouraged veterans that they ‘may need to push’ doctors ‘hard’ to get their preferred pain treatment,” the complaint states.

Purdue Pharma, which has denied wrongdoing, gave $116,500 to Florida politicians.

The biggest individual recipient of all of the companies was state Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, the chairman of the House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee. The companies gave him $15,250.

"I wasn't aware any had donated," he said. "But as a health chairman, I'm not surprised if a health company donates, and to be most contributed to only makes sense."

He said he doesn't believe Bondi's lawsuit has merit, saying that it could drive drug companies out of business and discourage them from investing in research.

"These drug companies go through an arduous review process with the FDA, produce journal after journal of clinical trials to support their claims, advertise to the most educated consumer base in the world, and for all that they could get sued out of business?" he said in a text.

He said drug makers were marketing to doctors, "arguably the smartest, most educated people in our society" who were appropriate judges of whether a patient needs pain medicine.

"I will do everything in my power to fight opioid abuse, but it seems kind of ridiculous to me to punish a manufacturer on the other side of a consumer with the most informed intermediary in the world between them," he said.

"I get that people want 'somebody to pay,'" he said. "But the problem is more complicated, and jumping on a bandwagon isn't going to get there."

He added, "This is not Joe Camel trying to appeal to 12 year olds," referring to the multi-billion-dollar tobacco cases of the 1990s.

The second-biggest recipient is the incoming House speaker, Rep. Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes.  He's received $12,500, most of it from a $10,000 check from Johnson & Johnson in 2015.

When asked for comment, he replied in a text: "I support pursuing the truth and holding anyone accountable for willfully misrepresenting the truth."

Whether the money given by the companies has had an effect on legislation is unknown.

But what is known is that under the Republican-controlled Legislature, Florida has been among the slowest states to react to both phases of the opioid crisis in the past 20 years: the pill mills that supplied tens of millions of opioids to patients who weren't really in pain, and the heroin crisis that followed after the pill mills were shut down.

For a decade, leaders in other states pleaded with Florida lawmakers to crack down on the pill mills, which were supplying opioids across the country. Residents of Appalachia, who couldn't get pills from their home states because their lawmakers cracked down on unscrupulous doctors, traveled to Florida to get their pills, a route that became so popular it was dubbed the "Oxy express."

By 2010, doctors in Florida were prescribing 10 times more oxycodone pills than every other state in the country combined.

Florida's leaders finally took action that year, cracking down on pill mills, overriding the complaints of doctors. It wasn't until the beginning of 2011 that the Legislature decided to fund a prescription drug monitoring program, considered critical to curbing prescribing abuses by doctors.

Coincidentally, 2010 was also the year that the nine companies gave their most money to lawmakers and committees: $183,000.

Scott, upon taking office in 2011, wanted to get rid of the prescription drug monitoring program, saying it was an invasion of privacy. He wasn't successful, but he was successful in eliminating the Office of Drug Control, a five-member unit that he never revived. He said their roles were assigned to other agencies.

Scott received just $6,000 from the companies Bondi is suing, but he has ties to two of them.

His 2013 financial disclosure showed that he owned nearly $300,000 in Johnson & Johnson stock, and in 2015, he awarded the company with up to $4.9 million in incentives to open up a headquarters in Tampa.

He also awarded Actavis, whose parent company, Allergan, makes the opioids Kadian and Norco, up to $690,000 in incentives to expand its factory and warehouse in Davie in 2013. Both companies were named as defendants in the Florida lawsuit. The project was eventually scrapped and wasn't paid any incentives.

This year, Scott pushed for the Legislature to approve their first significant action to fight the heroin crisis, a $53 million package of which more than half comes from a federal grant.

Still, Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam attended Tuesday's announcement from Bondi of the lawsuit and spoke in favor of it. The other member of the Cabinet, Jimmy Patronis, announced his support of the lawsuit, too. Scott, however, was silent until his office was asked two days later.

A spokesman replied that Scott "appreciates" Bondi's work on the opioid crisis.

"He's been proud to have worked with her in the past on this very serious issue," spokesman McKinley Lewis said in a statement. "If her office finds that companies have broken the law, they should be held fully accountable."