Everett ready to sue OxyContin maker over opioid deaths, crime
EVERETT — The mayor in Snohomish County’s largest city, a place where addiction to heroin and other opioids is officially considered an epidemic, wants the manufacturer of the powerful painkiller OxyContin to start paying to repair the damage done to the community.
Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson said he plans to ask the City Council on Wednesday to support a civil lawsuit by the city against Purdue Pharma.
The case would allege the drug manufacturer was negligent when it aggressively marketed OxyContin as a supposedly less-addictive alternative to other pain medication while simultaneously ignoring evidence that substantial quantities were diverted through “pill mills” to illegal drug traffickers.
OxyContin has addictive qualities on a par with morphine. The demand it created among people who became addicted planted the seeds here for what has become rampant use of heroin and other opioids, the city hopes to argue.
http://www.heraldnet.com/news/everett-might-sue-oxycontin-maker-over-opioid-deaths-crime/