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full screen Criticism of the settlement has been great. Archive image. Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP/TT
The US Supreme Court is tearing up the settlement that gives the family behind the drug Oxycontin protection from lawsuits.
An American appeals court decided last year that the Sackler family, which owns the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, would receive full immunity from civil lawsuits in exchange for paying the equivalent of roughly 60 billion kroner to deal with the consequences of the opioid epidemic.
The company manufactured the pain-relieving and highly addictive medicine Oxycontin, which led to an opioid epidemic, especially in the United States.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Sackler family, which has made tens of billions of dollars from its opioids, should not be protected from civil lawsuits. Thus, victims as well as relatives of victims can sue the family.
Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives in the opioid crisis and several million Americans are estimated to be addicted to opioids.