PBS News Weekend

The war on America's opioid epidemic is now being waged on the legal front. This month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a coalition of 41 states issued subpoenas seeking information from drug makers and distributors whose sales of opioids have quadrupled since 2000. This comes after Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine, citing the rising death toll from opioids in his state, sued five pharmaceutical companies and accused them of playing down the risks of painkiller addiction that has contributed to a "catastrophic public health crisis" that kills more people than car crashes. Ohio is the largest of seven states suing Big Pharma in order to recover some costs of coping with the opioid epidemic, from health care and foster care to its workers comp and corrections systems. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Chris Bury reports this story as part of the NewsHour series "America Addicted."