BUFFALO, N.Y. — As the United States Supreme Court decides whether to approve the multi-billion dollar Purdue Pharma bankruptcy deal to compensate opioid victims and fund government programs, a Fredonia woman just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C. to protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court.
Brianna Jaynes lost her sister to addiction. 2 On Your Side first spoke with Jaynes in the spring as part of our Kids Escaping Drugs televent as she shared her sister Whitney's story with us.
"She had suffered with heroin addiction, opiate addiction, really anything to, like, escape her mind," said Brianna Jaynes in May.
Whitney passed away in 2018. Since then, Jaynes has made it her life's work to fight for the rights of opioid victims and survivors.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the bankruptcy case involving the Sackler family, which helped create Oxycontin. The bankruptcy deal would shield the Sacklers from future liability from potential civil lawsuits in exchange for paying six-billion dollars to help victims of the opioid crisis.
Jaynes went to Washington to protest the deal.
"With this decision, if they do not grant immunity, it will give people the right to then go and collect compensation for what has happened to them and their loved ones instead of essentially giving that money back to say, like, the addiction treatment field where it's then flooded and trickled down," said Brianna Jaynes.
She wants families to be able to sue the Sacklers.
"It will open a door for more people to come at big companies and big pharmaceutical industries and say, hey, now I want to come up against you and say this is what's happened to me and how can we handle this more appropriately in the future," said Brianna Jaynes.
In D.C., Jaynes met with other advocates who share her mission and memories of loved ones lost to the opioid crisis like her sister, Whitney.
"I think part of her would be extremely proud of me. Now, there would be another side of, like, okay, I passed away of an overdose, and, you know, that's plastered everywhere and I don't know how she would feel about that. I think there would be a mixed feeling to be honest. But I also think that her passing away amplified my path. And if she had not passed away, would I be alive in my own recovery? And these are really strong questions that I don't have the answers to," said Jaynes.
Jaynes is busy doing work with her advocacy group Breaking Chains the Whitney Project and she's also working on documentaries about addiction and recovery.