More states continue to pursue legal action against drug manufacturers as a result of the cost – in dollars and human lives – of the nation’s opioid epidemic. In yet other states, including North Dakota, activists continue calling for similar efforts.

There is nothing wrong with challenging the practices of pharmaceutical companies when it comes to the saturation of opioid painkillers on the marketplace, and whether or not the companies were dishonest in their disclosures or otherwise unethical.

However, it is a bit of a spectacle to see the righteous indignation of government officials railing against the behavior of the drug industry. It calls to mind Claude Rains’ Captain Louis Renault: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

Whatever culpability big pharma has in the opioid abuse crisis pales in comparison to that of the federal government.

Business, all business, plays by a set of rules established by legislators and the regulatory environment. Within those rules, business has a simple and obvious goal: to succeed and grow. There is nothing insidious, unclear or mysterious about that. Businesses will act in accordance with that simple goal, generally following the rules established by the state. When businesses color outside the lines, the regulatory structure imposes punishment.

So when the regulatory parameters permits behavior that ends up adversely affecting the market, who is ultimately to blame – the game players or the rule makers?

The pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated. Where is the outrage with regulators? Aren’t we routinely told that without the massive regulatory state, humankind will fall into some kind of barbarism. Well that regulatory state hasn’t worked so well preventing this whole new wave of prescription pill- driven opioid addiction, has it?

We’ve seen government make scapegoats out of industry before. Government dodged almost all responsibility for the mortgage crisis, even though government policy established the rules by which lenders constructed their house of cards.

The lawsuits introduced by states against big pharma aren’t about reform and saving lives. And they aren’t about justice for people who fell into the dreadful web of addiction, or who died from the drugs. No, the lawsuits are about money. States see big pharma as having big bucks and transferring money from the private sector to the public sector is a top objective for government in these revenue-strapped days. Maybe a successful settlement will see real money invested in real efforts to combat the drug plague. But if there are financial settlements in the years ahead, there is just as much a chance the money ends up eaten up by legal fees, administration, consulting – traditional government inefficiency.

If the states thought action against the federal government would make money, that’s what they would be doing. But state governments have no interest in challenging the federal regulatory behemoth just on principle. Where’s the profit in that?

Whatever happens in court, no matter how many additional states pursue court action against drug companies for their part in the opioid epidemic – it is important that people remember that government has anything but clean hands when it comes to the problem.