Drugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis

Jennifer Weiss-Burke, executive director of a youth recovery center in Albuquerque, N.M., speaks about her son on Aug. 9, 2016. She says Cameron's descent into drug addiction started with a painkiller prescription from his doctor and ended with a fatal heroin overdose nearly three years later. (AP Photo/Mary Hudetz) Jennifer Weiss-Burke, executive director of a youth recovery center in Albuquerque, N.M., speaks about her son on Aug. 9, 2016. She says Cameron's descent into drug addiction started with a painkiller prescription from his doctor and ended with a fatal heroin overdose nearly three years later. (AP Photo/Mary Hudetz)

By Associated Press September 18, 2016 7 min read

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Drugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis

This undated photo provided by Jennifer Weiss-Burke on Sept. 12, 2016 shows her son, Cameron Weiss. Weiss-Burke said her teenage son's descent into drug addiction started with an opioid prescription a doctor wrote for him for a wrestling injury. After his death from a heroin overdose in 2011, Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure. (Jennifer Weiss-Burke via AP)

This undated photo provided by Jennifer Weiss-Burke on Sept. 12, 2016 shows her and her son, Cameron Weiss. Weiss-Burke said his descent into drug addiction started with an opioid prescription a doctor wrote for him for a wrestling injury. After his death from a heroin overdose in 2011, Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure. (Courtesy Jennifer Weiss-Burke via AP)

In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, a pharmacy technician poses for a picture with hydrocodone and acetaminophen tablets, also known as Vicodin, at the Oklahoma Hospital Discount Pharmacy in Edmond, Okla. For more than a decade, members of a little-known group called the Pain Care Forum have blanketed Washington with messages touting prescription painkillers' vital role in the lives of millions of Americans, creating an echo chamber that has quietly derailed efforts to curb U.S. consumption of the drugs, which accounts for two-thirds of the world's usage. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

Prescriptions: By the Numbers

A state-by-state breakdown of the number of opioid prescriptions issued from 2013-2015, as well as the rate of 2015 prescriptions per person in each state. Alabama ranks No. 1 for number of prescriptions per captia, followed by Tennessee at No. 2 and Georgia at No. 22.2013 2014 2015 2015 per capitaAlabama6,814,3056,393,7915,840,7541.20Tennessee8,525,0178,239,1107,800,9471.18Georgia8,643,8698,305,9297,880,5240.77U.S.251,814,805244,462,567227,780,9150.71Source: IMS Health

Lobbying in the South

The number of registered lobbyists employed by members of the Pain Care Forum for each year, 2012-2015. 2012 2013 2014 2015 National rankTennessee 22 21 23 21 15Alabama 23 20 26 26 33Georgia 46 46 52 47 36Source: National Institute on Money in State Politics

The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, the drugs at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction.

The drugmakers vow they’re combatting the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend. That includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on their drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl, the narcotic linked to Prince’s death.

The industry and its allies spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015 – more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter policies spent and eight times more than the influential gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period, the AP and Center for Public Integrity found.