Lawsuit joins more than 60 others filed across the US against makers of prescription painkillers for ‘peddling dangerous drugs’

New York City on Tuesday sued the makers of prescription painkillers such as OxyContin, Percocet and fentanyl that have played a central role in the opioid crisis killing tens of thousands across the nation.

'I don’t know how they live with themselves' – artist Nan Goldin​ takes on the billionaire family behind OxyContin Read more

The mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, and his wife Chirlane McCray, who leads the city’s efforts on mental health and drug addiction, announced a $500m lawsuit “to hold manufacturers and distributors to account”, filed in New York state supreme court.

“More New Yorkers have died from opioid overdoses than car crashes and homicides combined in recent years. ‘Big Pharma’ helped to fuel this epidemic by deceptively peddling these dangerous drugs and hooking millions,” De Blasio said. A record 1,000-plus people died in New York from opioid-related overdoses in 2016, the mayor reported.

Q&A Why is there an opioid crisis in America? Show Hide Almost 100 people are dying every day across America from opioid overdoses – more than car crashes and shootings combined. The majority of these fatalities reveal widespread addiction to powerful prescription painkillers. The crisis unfolded in the mid-90s when the US pharmaceutical industry began marketing legal narcotics, particularly OxyContin, to treat everyday pain. This slow-release opioid was vigorously promoted to doctors and, amid lax regulation and slick sales tactics, people were assured it was safe. But the drug was akin to luxury morphine, doled out like super aspirin, and highly addictive. What resulted was a commercial triumph and a public health tragedy. Belated efforts to rein in distribution fueled a resurgence of heroin and the emergence of a deadly, black market version of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The crisis is so deep because it affects all races, regions and incomes

More than 60 federal lawsuits of a similar nature filed by cities and counties across the US are now being handled collectively by a federal judge in Ohio, Dan Polster.

There are indications he may also take on other related cases that have been filed in state courts, as legal experts talk of a “tidal wave” of litigation, potentially setting up a huge legal showdown with the industry.

New York City on Tuesday sued several companies, led by Purdue Pharma, the family-owned creator of OxyContin the original brand of slow-release, powerful prescription narcotics that ushered in the crisis 20 years ago with aggressive marketing campaigns and insufficient warnings about addiction and abuse.

Additional defendants include Endo, which makes the painkiller Percocet; Cephalon, which makes the fentanyl lollipop-type lozenge Actiq; Janssen, which makes fentanyl patches; and other opioid makers, including Johnson & Johnson, Watson, Teva and Allergan.

The singers Prince and Tom Petty had fentanyl in their systems when they died of accidental overdoses in 2015 and 2017 respectively, having previously become addicted to prescription opioids, and the art photographer Nan Goldin slammed Purdue in the Guardian on Monday after revealing she is in recovery from opioid addiction.

Chirlane McCray cited “the greedy and reckless behavior of these companies” for “tearing apart families”.