Minnesota counties have opened up an important new front in the war on opioids.

At least 20 counties, including Olmsted and Mower, plan to file a lawsuit against manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids to recover at least some of the costs of dealing with this public health emergency.

The Trump administration has declared opioid abuse a national emergency, and the county actions recognize that and call attention to the local costs — human and financial — of dealing with a deadly health crisis that many believe is due in part to the overprescription of drugs, for which the manufacturers and distributors bear some responsibility and accountability.

“This is a public nuisance and they need to help us clean it up,” Washington County Attorney Pete Orput told WCCO-TV last month.

Metro area county attorneys plan to file civil lawsuits in each of those counties, accusing the drug companies of fraudulent marketing and negligent distribution. The lawsuits will seek restitution for at least some of the public costs of addressing the crisis, from law enforcement and medical care through treatment and prevention.

“What we seek by filing these suits is accountability and restitution,” Orput said. “This isn’t a money grab. This is asking them to help us pay for the crisis they’ve put in our laps.”

This legal effort is not unlike Minnesota’s historic litigation against tobacco companies 20 years ago, which as described by the Mitchell Hamline Law School, “changed the way America approaches the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the United States.”

It’s far too early to say the litigation can help achieve an outcome of that magnitude, but public health officials and county board members say it’s a place to start.

“It’s one thing we can do to join our voice with others across the nation,” said Sheila Kiscaden, who was one of five Olmsted County commissioners to vote to authorize the action last month.

Two commissioners, Matt Flynn and Jim Bier, voted no, with Flynn saying the county risks “being drawn into a game where we are going to be a pawn in this legal issue for years to come.”

That’s a reasonable concern, but County Attorney Mark Ostrem correctly says the county litigation is likely to be bundled into a consolidated action that goes to federal court. There’ll be costs to prepare the lawsuit at the local level, but there are costs right now in dealing with the profound community impacts of opioid addiction.

In Mower County, where the proposed litigation won unanimous approval from the county board, County Coordinator Craig Oscarson said at a meeting last month, “The epidemic is impacting all of us in many ways, including financial. We know that we are seeing more clients we serve in terms of treatment and jail. … It is obvious this epidemic needs attention and causes strains on budgets as well as county staff.”

Litigation isn’t the only way to get at reducing prescription opioid addiction, by any means, but it can have an immediate impact on the companies that control the production and flow.

In an emergency, you take extraordinary actions. Court action is one extraordinary way to get at the root of the opioid epidemic.

— Rochester Post-Bulletin, Dec. 8