British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy is feeling positive about B.C.’s law suit against 40 drug manufacturing companies.

It comes after a judge in Oklahoma ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay over 570 million dollars to the state for its role in the opioid crisis. “Cautiously optimistic about it. I mean, it is a different court. Our case will be heard in the courts here. If the court in Oklahoma had found that they were not responsible, that could have been a significant setback, but they didn’t do that.” She says it looked at facts that are very similar to what’s happened her in BC.

Darcy says these companies need to be held accountable and this is a step in the right direction. “Health professionals were already sounding the alarm in the mid 90’s and the late 90’s and yet they persisted in promoting these ads. They would say, ‘no-no, these are less addictive than other drugs’ and they would advocate for using increasing amounts of these pharmaceuticals without any dangers. They did that even after they knew the impact.” She hopes that the lawsuit launched in BC last year against 40 drug manufacturers will see similar outcomes to what happened in Oklahoma and be a deterrent to them in the future.  “The really, really critical thing here is these companies need to be held accountable. They need to know this was wrong, they need to pay the consequences. And hopefully this will also be a deterrent for them to act like this in the future.”

Darcy says it is still trying to calculate what the financial impact has been in the past and will be going forward to deal with the effects of these drug manufacturers actions.