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Springfield Files Lawsuit Against Drug Companies Over Opioid Crisis

   The largest city in western Massachusetts has filed suit against pharmaceutical companies seeking to recover costs related to the opioid crisis.  

     The lawsuit filed last week in Hampden Superior Court and announced Wednesday by the office of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno is the latest legal salvo out of Massachusetts accusing drug companies of “creating” the opioid crisis.

     "It has destroyed lives, relationships, and families," Sarno said of the opioid epidemic in an interview earlier this year.

     The city’s plans to file the lawsuit were announced last year. A national law firm has taken the case. The same firm has filed similar suits on behalf of several other Massachusetts municipalities.

      A spokesperson for a trade group representing drug companies said the suits are an attempt at “scapegoating” the industry for the opioid epidemic.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.