NBC Nightly News reported that internal documents and communications from Oxycontin-maker Purdue Pharma made public for the first time showed the company “made plans to fight back against the emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed,” according to a court filing by the Massachusetts attorney general. The document showed that the company’s former president, Richard Sackler, wanted to target “the abusers” as “the culprits and the problem.” However, the company also “saw a potential business opportunity in those same abusers,” and “Purdue executives discussed promoting the overdose reversal drug narcan to the same doctors who prescribed the most opioids.”

Also, the New York Times reports that Sackler also “directed the company to put a premium on selling high dosages of its potentially addicting painkillers.” Sackler told company officials in 2008 to “measure our performance by Rx’s by strength, giving higher measures to higher strengths,” according to an email written by Sackler, contained in the filing.

From the news release of the American Association for Justice.