Victims of OxyContin addiction in Kentucky should be heartened by a new lawsuit launched this week against the drug's maker by Kentucky's attorney general and several counties. Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut-based maker of the highly addictive narcotic painkiller, has been sued for fraud, conspiracy, negligence and public nuisance, and asked to pay unspecified punitive and compensatory damages as well as a medical monitoring program to find, diagnose and treat victims of OxyContin addiction, including the state and counties’ past, present and future OxyContin drug rehab costs.



The Kentucky suit comes just days after Purdue Pharma agreed to pay $19.5 million to Washington D.C. and 26 states, including Kentucky, as part of a $634.5 million settlement from an earlier federal and state joint lawsuit. In May, the company and three senior executives pled guilty to knowingly and fraudulently misbranding OxyContin as being less addictive, less subject to abuse and diversion, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdrawal problems than other pain medications. In fact, just the opposite has been the case. OxyContin has been blamed for more than 500 deaths across the country, and thousands of OxyContin addicts have required drug rehab treatment.

Additional class action suits are being considered in a number of other states as well as in Canada, where drug rehab centers routinely deal with illicit as well as legitimate prescription OxyContin addictions.

The Kentucky suit contends that Purdue Pharma knew the painkiller was being abused and did nothing to stop it. In addition to damages and drug rehab reimbursements, it wants Purdue Pharma to cover the costs of prescription plan payments, notifying past and future OxyContin users of the drug's dangers, and new research into the short- and long-term effects of the drug and possible cures for addiction. This last suggests that the state may want to develop more effective modes of drug rehab. Experience has shown that in-patient residential drug rehab treatment is more effective, but more costly, than out-patient care for serious opiate addictions – all the more reason to expect Purdue Pharma to help cover the costs.

OxyContin is a slow-release compound containing oxycodone, a highly-addictive opiate considered a "reasonable substitute" for heroin by street addicts. In the Appalachian regions of the southeastern U.S., which includes parts of Kentucky, drug rehab centers have been pushed to capacity and law enforcement strained to the limits trying to deal with the illicit abuse of OxyContin, often called "hillbilly heroin."

Kentucky has been among the hardest hit by OxyContin abuse and addiction. In 2006, 484 people died from drug overdoses in Kentucky, according to the state medical examiner's annual report, and it found that oxycodone was the main cause in 16 percent of the deaths. The state says abuse of prescription drugs including OxyContin is so rampant in Kentucky’s Pike County, where the lawsuit was filed, that the jail needed a $5.6 million expansion to deal with the problem.

Paying for Kentucky's costs dealing with the OxyContin epidemic cannot compensate the hundreds who have already died from the drug, but it should help relieve the suffering of the thousands of victims of OxyContin addiction by assisting their recovery through drug rehab treatment.