J&J Greed Spawned Thousands of Opioid Deaths, Oklahoma Says (2)

Johnson & Johnson’s greed for more sales of its addictive opioid painkillers helped create a deadly epidemic in Oklahoma that claimed thousands of lives, and the company should pay billions of dollars as compensation, the state’s top law-enforcement officer told a judge.

J&J and its Janssen unit used a “deceitful, multibillion-dollar brainwashing campaign’’ to dupe doctors into prescribing the powerful medications for unapproved ailments, causing a wave of fatal overdoses and addiction woes, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said at the start of a trial in the state’s claim against the company.

Oklahoma’s lawsuit -- one of more than 1,600 ...