FARGO (KFGO) – Cass County and the City of Grand Forks have filed a federal lawsuit against the manufacturers of prescription opioids.
The 189-page complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Fargo.
The complaint names Purdue Pharma and several other drug companies accused of causing a nationwide addiction epidemic. The lawsuit claims that for more than two decades, doctors and patients were intentionally misled about the dangers of opioid addiction.
According to the complaint, in 2015 there were 60 opioid prescriptions written in North Dakota for every 100 people living in the state. In 2016, the state medical examiner reported 54 opioid-related deaths; 31 were reported in Cass County and 3 deaths occurred in Grand Forks.
The Grand Forks Fire Department and Altru EMS administered more than three times as much Naloxone in 2017 than they did in 2010, reaching a new high of 47 in 2017. Since August 2017, the City of Grand Forks distributed more than 275 Naloxone kits and trained more than 520 community members on overdose recognition.
Starting in November 2017, all high schools and middle schools in Cass County began carrying Narcan, the drug that reverses opioid overdoses.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for allegations that include racketeering, mail fraud, wire fraud, negligence and deceptive marketing. The defendants are accused of “borrowing from the tobacco industry’s playbook.”
Purdue Pharma was not immediately available to comment on the allegations.