Idiot Lawyer Calls for Total Ban on OxyContin  
Posted by ajones -- July 8, 2001
From Associated Press
PIKEVILLE An attorney who filed the latest lawsuit against the maker of OxyContin said his ultimate goal is to see the painkiller taken off the market.
``This medication has become a scourge, and if the manufacturer won't voluntarily pull it off the market for the benefit of consumer safety, we will try to give them some incentive to do it,'' said Louisville attorney Gary L. Gardner. ``We want to eat into their profits so bad they'll have to do something.''
Gardner, along with Pikeville attorney Ira Branham, filed suit Tuesday in Pike Circuit Court against the drug's manufacturer, Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., and several associated companies. The suit doesn't ask for specific damages.
Jim Heins, a spokesman for Purdue Pharma, said the company has no plans to take the drug off the market.
``We want the many thousands of patients in Kentucky receiving pain relief from OxyContin tablets to rest assured that nothing in this case, or in any other case, will cause us to abandon them or deter us from making sure our drug is available to them,'' Heins said.
Heins said Purdue Pharma's promotion of OxyContin has been legal, conservative and responsible, and that the company has worked with police and others to cut abuse of the drug.
Three people from Pike and Floyd counties are named as plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit, along with the estate of a deceased woman. They're claiming the companies deceptively marketed the drug, then overprescribed it in Eastern Kentucky, which led to problems with crime, addiction and death.
Two Pikeville pharmacies also are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
In a separate case, six Kentucky residents and the estates of two others have filed a lawsuit in Clay Circuit Court seeking $300 million plus other damages from the company.
Other lawsuits had already have been filed in Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.
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