OxyContin Maker Sued Over City’s Addiction Crisis

The city of Everett in Washington state has sued Purdue Pharma, alleging the company’s reckless and/or negligent behavior was a cause of  its rampant drug crisis. Specific allegations include that the company had important information about illegal OxyContin distribution and failed to share it with law enforcement. The lawsuit, reported in this Los Angeles Times article, follows a Times investigation last year that exposed an LA drug operation that supplied Everett and said  that similar problems were prevalent nationwide. The Everett lawsuit acknowledges that since 2010, when Purdue reformulated the drug in a way that  makes it harder to abuse, heroin has become more of a problem than OxyContin, but it claims that the current heroin crisis “is directly attributable to Purdue’s wrongful and tortious conduct.” According to the Times, although Purdue has been sued hundreds of times over its marketing of OxyContin to doctors and the subsequent addiction of patients, this lawsuit ” is the first to focus narrowly on what the company knew about criminal distribution of the painkiller.”