A coalition of Connecticut cities and towns are looking into suing pharmaceutical companies to hold them liable for their costs in responding to the opioid crisis.
Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary has started the coalition of elected leaders, which includes Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.
Boughton told the Connecticut Post that pharmaceutical companies push their products out to compete with each other, and many people become addicted as a result.
The coalition of cities and towns will meet with a law firm that represented the state of New York in their successful 2007 lawsuit against Stamford-based Purdue Pharma.
The company paid more than $630 million in fines as a result of the lawsuit, and admitted in court proceedings that it purposefully misled customers by marketing OxyContin as less addictive than it was.
In Connecticut, over 900 people have died from opioid-related overdoses, an increase of 156 percent in four years.
Both Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island have filed lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue Pharma, to recoup costs from fighting the opioid addiction.
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