"Alberta joins B.C. in lawsuit against opioid makers",15 Oct 2019

The lawsuit alleges that Purdue Pharma Inc., the makers of OxyContin, and more than 40 other companies knowingly marketed quantities of the drugs that went well beyond legitimate needs.

The Alberta government will join a class-action lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies to recoup costs it has incurred from the ongoing opioid crisis, it announced Tuesday.

Speaking in Calgary, Health Minister Tyler Shandro said that while doctors have overprescribed painkiller drugs such as fentanyl, it’s the manufacturers and distributors that are to blame, he said.

“One of the main reasons doctors overprescribed is that the companies told them that the opioids were safe. The manufacturers aggressively promoted the claim that opioids posed a low risk of addiction. That was misleading,” Shandro said.