Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday announced that New York City had filed a lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of opioid prescription drugs, joining a national campaign to hold the companies responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in costs related to the deadly opioid epidemic... On Jan. 10, he said the city was suing major oil companies

...Mr. de Blasio and his staff likened the efforts to litigation targeting tobacco companies, and suggested that the goals were similar: compensation for city spending to address problems caused by the company’s products, and a change in future corporate behavior.

...New York is far from the first to take drug companies to court over the opioid crisis. Chicago did so in 2014 and its case is continuing...Philadelphia and Delawareeach filed lawsuits in recent days. A lawsuit filed by Oklahoma is expected to go to trial later this year.

...The manufacturers named in the lawsuit include Purdue Pharma, Teva, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen, Endo, Allergan, Watson and various subsidiaries. The distributors include McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen.

..."[A]llegations made in these lawsuits...are baseless and unsubstantiated,” a spokeswoman for Janssen Pharmaceuticals...A spokesman for Purdue Pharma said...it “vigorously” denied the city’s allegations.

[Also refers to Cardinal Health, Cephalon, Endo, Watson]