By Ed Coghlan

The nation’s largest state may be girding for a fight with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, a widely used and highly addictive opioid painkiller.

The LA Times reported this week that Purdue has a list of 1,800 doctors nationally that it believes have risky prescribing histories of the drug. Fifty-nine of the physicians are practicing in California, but Purdue won’t say who they are.

State Senator Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Southern California, wrote the company a letter Monday demanding that the company release the names.

“Painkillers serve a useful role but they can be abused,” Lieu told National Pain Report. “People are dying of over-prescription. If Purdue has a data base of risky doctors who may be recklessly and carelessly prescribing, they have a moral duty to let California know about it.”

Read more at National Pain Report.