A member of the family that owns Purdue Pharma — which is being sued by more than 1,000 jurisdictions for its alleged role in seeding the opioid crisis with its pain medication OxyContin — has been awarded a patent for a treatment for opioid use disorder. 
 
 Dr. Richard Sackler is listed as one of six inventors on the patent, which was issued in January and was first reported Friday by the Financial Times. Critics told the FT that they were disturbed that the patent could enable Sackler to benefit financially from the addiction crisis that his family’s company is accused of fueling. 
 
 Purdue has denied the allegations in the lawsuits, which also target a range of other opioid painkiller manufacturers and distributors. 
 
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 The patent concerns a new formulation of buprenorphine, one of the medications shown to help people with opioid addiction. It is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration in tablet and film form, but the patent describes a wafer that could dissolve even faster than existing forms when put under the tongue. 
 
 The patent says that the faster the treatment dissolves, the less risk there is for diversion. 
 
 Sackler is the past president of Purdue; his father was one of three brothers who founded the company. The family has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to museums and schools and hospitals around the world, but has increasingly come under scrutiny amid the opioid crisis. 
 
 In addition to the more than 1,000 lawsuits against Purdue from cities, state, counties, and tribes — most of which have been consolidated in an Ohio federal court — a case brought by Massachusetts recently named the Sackler family as defendants. 
 
 Meanwhile, Congress has requested from Purdue a copy of a deposition from Sackler that was taken as part of a lawsuit brought by Kentucky against Purdue. The case was settled in 2015, but it is believed to be the only time a member of the Sackler family has been questioned under oath about the marketing of OxyContin and what the company knew about the addictive properties of the pain reliever. 
 
 In a lawsuit in Kentucky, STAT has also sought to obtain a copy of the deposition. 
 
 The description in the patent warns that people who are addicted to drugs sometimes commit crimes to feed their habit, which is why it says improved forms of medication-assisted treatment are needed. Some of the lawsuits against Purdue and the other opioid companies have cited the public safety and law enforcement costs associated with addiction. 
 
 The description of the patent says the form of buprenorphine could also be used to treat pain in people or animals. 
 
 Purdue declined to comment on the patent. 
 
 Separately, Purdue has been trying to show it is taking steps to address the addiction crisis. It has backed safer prescribing efforts and donated money to the National Sheriffs’ Association to purchase naloxone and train law enforcement on its use. This week, it contributed $3.4 million to a company working on a low-cost naloxone nasal spray. ||||| Police and social service workers search under an Everett overpass while administering a Point in Time survey of the homeless in Everett. The city of Everett is considering a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, arguing the manufacturer of OxyContin is responsible for the community’s surge in overdose deaths, homelessness and street crime. (Herald file) 
 
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 EVERETT — The mayor in Snohomish County’s largest city, a place where addiction to heroin and other opioids is officially considered an epidemic, wants the manufacturer of the powerful painkiller OxyContin to start paying to repair the damage done to the community. 
 
 Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson said he plans to ask the City Council on Wednesday to support a civil lawsuit by the city against Purdue Pharma. 
 
 The case would allege the drug manufacturer was negligent when it aggressively marketed OxyContin as a supposedly less-addictive alternative to other pain medication while simultaneously ignoring evidence that substantial quantities were diverted through “pill mills” to illegal drug traffickers. 
 
 OxyContin has addictive qualities on a par with morphine. The demand it created among people who became addicted planted the seeds here for what has become rampant use of heroin and other opioids, the city hopes to argue. 
 
 Everett has been studying for months how to make a case that Purdue is responsible for the community’s surge in overdose deaths, homelessness and street crime, Stephanson said. 
 
 The more the city and its attorneys have learned, the more convinced the mayor has become that the drug manufacturer needs to be held accountable. 
 
 “We are going to go at them, and we are going to go at them hard,” Stephanson said. 
 
 The family-owned pharmaceutical company is worth billions, according to a 2015 Forbes story. Purdue has racked up more than $35 billion in sales since launching OxyContin, with annual sales at $3 billion, according to the Forbes story. 
 
 It also has faced criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits across the country. In 2007, company executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to deceitful marketing practices and the company agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and other costs. 
 
 Everett alleges that diversion and harm continued. 
 
 Some key evidence surfaced because of the federal prosecution of Jevon Lawson, formerly of Mill Creek, and people associated with a California-based clinic that illegally diverted OxyContin to drug traffickers. 
 
 Lawson was a California gang member who six years ago was making a name for himself in the rap world under the stage name Swag. The Daily Herald published a front-page story about him in 2011 after he was indicted for peddling large amounts of drugs in Snohomish County. 
 
 Lawson and his connection to Everett’s heroin problem was featured in an Los Angeles Times series in July. The Everett City Council began talking about Purdue’s possible involvement a few days later. 
 
 Lawson had caught the attention of local law enforcement as early as 2007, when a confidential informant reported buying crack from him. Cops were told that Lawson was getting out of the crack business. He’d found a more profitable product: OxyContin. 
 
 Federal agents raided his Mill Creek area home in 2008, seizing marijuana, a large amount of money and financial documents. It’s unclear why Lawson wasn’t prosecuted at the time. 
 
 As part of his 2011 plea agreement, Lawson admitted to selling large amounts of Oxy between 2008 and 2010, well after he was on law enforcement’s radar. 
 
 While Lawson was under investigation, local leaders already were discussing the surge of prescription pain medication abuse. The Daily Herald published a story in 2008 about a conference in Everett for health care workers about the effect of the abuse. 
 
 At the time, prosecutors told the crowd there was a spike in pharmacy robberies and other crimes tied to black market prescription drugs. They also were already seeing people switching to heroin, a cheaper alternative. 
 
 Lawson wasn’t the only illicit OxyContin supplier in Snohomish County. Federal agents cracked down on an Everett osteopath who operated a pain management clinic on Evergreen Way. Delbert Whetstone’s prescribing practices came under scrutiny after several drug dealers were arrested with prescription medication bottles bearing his name. 
 
 Investigators alleged that Whetstone had prescribed nearly 88,000 of 80 mg OxyContin in a 10-month period in 2009. In comparison, Providence Regional Medical Center Everett had ordered 13,400 of the tablets during the same time frame, according to court papers. Whetstone was sentenced in 2012 to three years in federal prison. 
 
 In 2010, under pressure, Purdue changed the formula of its product, making it more difficult to smoke. People addicted to the powerful prescription pain killer turned to heroin. 
 
 Heroin deaths rates have quadrupled over the past decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Snohomish County, heroin and prescription opioids were responsible for two-thirds of the 130 accidental overdose deaths in 2013. 
 
 Snohomish County Human Services Division and the county’s Health District compiled a report about heroin, overdose deaths and treatment trends. The report was released in 2015. 
 
 It showed that fatal heroin overdoses were happening most frequently in north Everett and the Tulalip Indian Reservation. 
 
 The spike in heroin use has taxed resources in Snohomish County. Law enforcement, the courts, health care and treatment providers, social service agencies and others have struggled to respond. 
 
 As heroin use has increased, so has the homeless population in the county. Business owners and neighbors are demanding solutions to an increase in panhandling, encampments and property crimes. 
 
 The Everett Police Department and Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office have teamed up officers with social workers in an effort to get people help, including treatment and housing. In the jail, staff is helping enroll inmates into Washington Apple Health, the state’s Medicaid program. That means once people are released they can access medical services, such as chemical dependency treatment or mental health resources. 
 
 Everett also is working to build a housing project that will offer 70 apartments for the chronically homeless. 
 
 Those are all costly programs that are being shouldered by taxpayers. Stephanson said Purdue has a responsibility to help bear the costs, particularly in the years ahead. 
 
 The lawsuit would be “an action we can take as a community to say ‘Enough is enough,’ ” the mayor said. 
 
 The drug company has been accused before of selling OxyContin in Washington without regard to its role in fueling addiction. 
 
 In May 2007, Rob McKenna, then state attorney general, announced a legal settlement to end litigation over how Purdue had marketed the powerful painkiller. At the time, Washington was one of roughly two dozen states around the country alleging the company had for years been attempting to increase the market for OxyContin while deliberately downplaying the risk of addiction and other harm. 
 
 Purdue’s salespeople at the time were compensated based in part on how much of the drug they sold, the complaint alleged. State attorneys accused the drug manufacturer of ignoring prescribing data that could have identified “pill mills” and other sources of abuse. The company also was accused of not sharing suspicions with law enforcement. 
 
 “Purdue sales representatives instead targeted the highest prescribers and encouraged them to prescribe more OxyContin, in larger doses, to more patients,” the 2007 complaint said. “Purdue’s marketing practices thus exacerbated the abuse and diversion risks.” 
 
 In exchange for an end to the pending lawsuits, the drug company agreed to pay the states $19.5 million. Washington’s share was $719,500. Under terms of the 2007 consent decree, Purdue admitted no wrongdoing. 
 
 Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. ||||| Orange and Santa Clara counties joined forces Wednesday in a lawsuit against the nation’s largest manufacturers of opium-like pain killers, accusing the firms of deceptive marketing that spawned an epidemic of addiction and overdoses. 
 
 The 105-page lawsuit, filed in Orange County by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, alleges five pharmaceutical companies spent millions of dollars to convince the public that drugs meant only for short-term use by cancer patients should be taken for chronic pain. 
 
 The marketing campaign changed prescription opioids from a niche drug to an $8 billion industry by 2010 and contributed to more than 16,000 overdose deaths that same year, putting profits above health, the suit states. 
 
 The rise in highly addictive painkillers also created an atmosphere where doctors made life-and-death decisions based not on science but on hype, the suit states. 
 
 Rackauckas, in an interview Wednesday, likened the pharmaceutical companies to the tobacco industry. “What we’re after is to make these companies stop the practice of false advertising and false claims that these drugs are benign,” he said. “The effort is to require them to be truthful.” 
 
 Filed after an extensive series of Register columns over three years blaming much of the epidemic on drug companies, the lawsuit names Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Janssen Pharmaceuticals – a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Endo Health Solutions, and Actavis, as well as affiliated companies. 
 
 All the companies are accused of false advertising, unfair competition and creating a public nuisance. Teva, Endo and Actavis could not be reached for comment. 
 
 Robyn Frenze, with New Jersey-based Janssen, responded, “We’re committed to responsible promotion, prescribing and use of all our medications. At this time, we’re reviewing the case.” 
 
 Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., issued a similar response, “We have not received the complaint from the local authorities, nor had the opportunity to review it. When we do, we will respond accordingly.” 
 
 The lawsuit earned applause from several Orange County parents who have lost children to prescription drug overdoses. 
 
 “It’s always been my opinion that Big Pharma is the head of the snake,” said James Kennedy, whose son, Joey, died from an overdose. “They flood the market with a very powerful opiate that shouldn’t be prescribed but for a very small portion of patients. The whole organization is designed for profit, not for healing.” 
 
 Jodi Barber, whose son, Jarrod, 19, also overdosed, declared, “This could be a major break in the epidemic.” 
 
 Pushing drugs like Vicodin, Opana and Oxycontin, the pharmaceutical companies appealed to doctors and consumers that the dangers of opioids were untrue and that the compassionate treatment of pain actually required opioids, according to the suit. 
 
 “They overstated the benefits of using opioids long-term to treat chronic non-cancer pain, promising improvement in patients’ function and quality of life,” said the suit. “(They) dismissed or minimized the serious risks and adverse outcomes of chronic opioid use, including the risk of addiction, overdose, and death.” 
 
 Slick campaigns – born in marketing offices and not supported by science – sold the opioids for long-term pain, said the suit. 
 
 “The result has been catastrophic,” said the suit. 
 
 According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescription opioids contributed to 16,651 overdose deaths nationally in 2010 – more than twice as many deaths as heroin and cocaine combined. It caused more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. In Orange County alone there is an opioid-related death, on average, every other day. 
 
 For every death, CDC reports, more than 30 people are treated in emergency rooms. 
 
 “The United States is now awash in opioids,” states the suit. In 2010, 254 million prescriptions for opioids were filled in the U.S. – enough to medicate every adult in America around the clock for a month, the suit states. Twenty percent of all doctor visits result in the prescription of an opioid, nearly double the rate in 2000. Opioids are now the most prescribed class of drugs, said the suit. 
 
 While Americans represent 4.6 percent of the world’s population, they consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of opioids, according to the suit. 
 
 With the prescription drug epidemic came a rise in heroin use as addicts looked for a cheaper high. 
 
 “It is hard to imagine the powerful pull that would cause a law-abiding, middle-aged person started on prescription opioids for a back injury, to turn to buying, snorting, or injecting heroin, but that is the dark side of opioid abuse and addiction,” the suit says. 
 
 Pharmaceutical firms, according to the suit, “unleashed the epidemic” by downplaying the risks and exaggerating the benefits of opioids over other drugs, shifting medical convention. 
 
 “Defendant Cephalon, for example, marketed its opioid, Fentora, for chronic non-cancer pain even though it was approved only to treat cancer pain,” said the suit. “What makes this effort particularly nefarious – and dangerous – is that unlike most other prescription drugs, opioids are highly addictive controlled substances.” 
 
 The companies deceptively engaged a patient base that – physically and psychologically – could not turn away from their drugs. Many were not helped by the drugs, but were profoundly damaged, the suit said. 
 
 This is not the first time that the drug companies have gotten into trouble. 
 
 In 2007, Purdue settled criminal and civil charges for misbranding OxyContin, agreeing to pay the United States $635 million – one of the largest settlements with a drug company for marketing misconduct. Still, Purdue had national annual sales of OxyContin between $2.47 billion and $2.99 billion for the last five years, the suit said. 
 
 In 2008, Cephalon pleaded guilty to a criminal violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for its misleading promotion of Actiq and two other drugs and agreed to pay $425 million. 
 
 Contact the writer: tsaavedra@ocregister.com
– Irony alert: A billionaire accused of worsening the opioid crisis just won a patent for a drug to treat opioid addiction, Stat News reports. Richard Sackler, whose family owns OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma, is one of six inventors behind a new medication that could help people get off drugs including opioids. It would be a new kind of buprenorphine—a gentle opiate that curbs drug cravings—which is already FDA-approved in film-strip or tablet form and now would come in wafers disintegrating quickly under the tongue, per the Financial Times. The best-selling version of buprenorphine, Suboxone, made $877 million in US sales for the British pharmaceutical company Indivior. The patent application says the new drug would help ease crime caused by addicts, but doesn't mention the thousand-plus lawsuits filed against Purdue Pharma for allegedly spurring the opioid epidemic. "It's reprehensible what Purdue Pharma has done to our public health," says the director of an addiction treatment center in Staten Island, New York. He adds that Sackler's family "shouldn't be allowed to peddle any more synthetic opiates—and that includes opioid substitutes." The Sacklers, known mostly for philanthropy before the opioid epidemic, deny fueling a crisis that killed 42,000 people in 2016. In related news, Julia Roberts is starring in the new film Ben Is Back about a mother dealing with an opioid-addicted son who comes home for Christmas, per USA Today.