Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's most populous province of Ontario on Monday announced plans to sue opioid makers to recover health care costs related to the deadly addiction epidemic.
Ontario's
attorney general, Caroline Mulroney, said the province will join a lawsuit
launched last year by British Columbia against more than 40 opioid
manufacturers and wholesalers.
"The
opioid crisis has cost the people of Ontario enormously, both in terms of lives
lost and its impact on health care's front lines," Mulroney said.
She
unveiled legislation to set up the legal action "to battle the ongoing
opioid crisis and hold manufacturers and wholesalers accountable for their
roles in it."
More than
10,000 Canadians have died of opioid-related overdoses since 2016, according to
government figures. Combatting the crisis is estimated to have cost Ottawa
nearly Can$400 million (US$300 million).
Historically,
opioid overdose deaths -- mainly from the powerful painkiller fentanyl -- were
concentrated among drug addicts.
But many
victims became addicted to prescribed painkillers before turning to street
drugs and others were experimenting with recreational drugs for the first time.
Alberta,
British Columbia and Ontario have been the hardest hit provinces but the
epidemic has affected every part of the country.
The British
Columbia suit named opioid manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors as
defendants -- including Purdue, whose popular OxyContin drug has been blamed
for triggering the crisis.
"These
opioid manufacturers and wholesalers failed to warn doctors and the public of
the dangers of opioids and marketed them as safer and less addictive than other
medications when they were not," Ontario alleged in a statement.
Mulroney
said Ontario intends to invest any award from the suit in mental health and
addiction services.
Neither
British Columbia nor Ontario have yet said how much they would be seeking in
damages.
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