San Clemente Opioid Lawyer

From Abstral to Vicodin, opioid medications have been in widespread use around the United States for years—but only recently, however, have the true dangers associated with the drugs become widely known in the public eye. The rate of addiction, overdose, and premature deaths attributable to opioid use has risen into a full-blown crisis over the past few years, leaving scores of families suffering needlessly and unsure of what to do about it.

If you or a loved one experienced physical, personal, or financial losses due to opioid addiction or overdose, you have legal options at your disposal and qualified dangerous drug attorneys available to help you use them. By talking to a San Clemente opioid lawyer, you could better understand how this epidemic started, who may be legally responsible for it, and what you could do to hold those parties liable for their reckless and careless actions. Reach out to a passionate attorney today.

Why Are Opioids So Dangerous?

In the early 1990s, doctors in the United States first began prescribing natural and semi-synthetic opioids in large quantities, and in the years that followed, opioid-related overdose deaths slowly and quietly rose due to the unpublicized dangers of prescription drugs like methadone. Since 2010, the rate of opioid overdose drugs has increased dramatically and catastrophically, in many cases due to patients with addictions started by legal opioids resorting to illicitly-manufactured forms of fentanyl, like heroin.

What makes opioid-based medications so simultaneously potent and dangerous is the way in which they fundamentally alter the brain chemistry of those who use them. Opioids suppress pain by blocking pain receptors in the brain, but because of this, they also cause feelings of euphoria in patients, become less effective over time, and sometimes lead to symptoms of withdrawal once a course of treatment ends.

Even if someone only takes opioids as prescribed by their doctor, they may still be at risk of addiction. According to the CDC, as many as 25 percent of patients who undergo long-term opioid therapy end up with a physical addiction to the drug. Since drug companies misled the public in many respects about this possibility associated with their products, a San Clemente opioid attorney may be able to help someone suffering with opioid addiction file suit for damages related to their condition.

What Legal Counsel Could Do to Help

Even if victims or their families have a strong case, it is virtually impossible for one person to go up against a pharmaceutical giant’s team of corporate lawyers and reach a favorable outcome. One key way that victims of the opioid crisis may be able to even the odds, though, is by combining their individual cases into mass tort litigation, through which multiple plaintiffs suffering harm from the same defendant’s negligence can work together to file suit against them for a single large settlement.

There is precedent for this kind of action getting positive results—in 2007, for instance, a large company was forced to pay a settlement of $600 million for misleading consumers about the dangers associated with their opioid medication OxyContin. With assistance from dedicated opioid lawyers, people in San Clemente harmed by this crisis may be able to take similar action in defense of their rights and financial futures.

Learn More from a San Clemente Opioid Attorney

For too many families in California and across the United States, opioids have been a source of unnecessary pain, medical expenses, and personal losses, to say nothing of the premature deaths caused by opioid-related overdoses. In order to hold the manufacturers, sellers, and prescribers of these drugs liable for the harm they have caused you, you need an experienced and steadfast ally in your corner.

Once retained, a compassionate San Clemente opioid lawyer could fight tirelessly for your rights and work on your behalf to recover compensation for all your opioid-related damages. Call today to discuss what may be available in your case.