Amendments Strengthen Action Against Opioid Companies

The Province is updating legislation that holds opioid companies accountable for their actions and provides the government options to try to recover past and future healthcare costs due to opioid-related diseases, injuries or illnesses.

Amendments to the Opioid Damages and Health-care Costs Recovery Act introduced today, October 12, make consultants subject to potential legal action and align definitions and formulas in the act with legislation in other provinces and territories.

“Hundreds of Nova Scotians are dealing with opioid-use disorder, and dozens die each year from opioid-related overdose,” said Michelle Thompson, Minister of Health and Wellness. “Opioid manufacturers, distributors and their consultants should be held accountable for the deceptive practices that have led to opioid use disorder and overdose in Nova Scotia and across Canada.”

Proposed amendments to the act include:

• adding a direct cause of action against consultants to opioid manufacturers/wholesalers
• altering the definition of opioid product to include “active ingredient”
• allowing for different formulas to be used to calculate the market share of wholesaler and manufacturer defendants
• providing a direct action by the federal government.

British Columbia filed a lawsuit in August 2018 against more than 40 opioid manufacturers and distributors on behalf of all Canadian jurisdictions. Several other provinces and territories have passed similar legislation to support the class action process.

Amendments to Nova Scotia’s act will build in accountability and help address factors affecting health and well-being, which are part of Action for Health, the Province’s strategic plan to improve healthcare.

Quick Facts:

• 63 Nova Scotians died from opioid overdoes in 2022
• Nova Scotia’s Opioid Use and Overdose Framework includes strategies to reduce the effects of opioid use and overdoses by focusing on understanding the issue, prevention, harm reduction, treatment and prescribing practices, and criminal justice and law enforcement
• Nova Scotia’s Take Home Naloxone Program provides free naloxone kits to all Nova Scotians at risk of an opioid poisoning and those who are most likely to witness and respond to an opioid poisoning
• since 2017, the Take Home Naloxone Program has distributed 32,365 kits

Additional Resources:

Nova Scotia’s Opioid Use and Overdose Framework: https://novascotia.ca/opioid/nova-scotia-opioid-use-and-overdose-framework.pdf

Opioid Use and Overdose Framework progress update: https://novascotia.ca/opioid/opioid-framework-update-september-2022.pdf

Bills tabled in the legislature are available at: https://nslegislature.ca/legislative-business/bills-statutes/bills/assembly-64-session-1