New Hampshire candidate's ties to oxy manfacturer 'death knell in a general election'

Cinde Warmington, a Democrat running for governor of New Hampshire next year, has sought to prioritize fighting the opioid epidemic. In one ad, she promises to “finally tackle the mental health crisis and fentanyl crisis in a real way, so that families can get the help they need.”

There's just one problem, reported The Daily Beast: two decades ago, Warmington was a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, defending their right to sell OxyContin, a powerful opioid painkiller that helped trigger the crisis in the first place.

"Speaking before the state legislature in 2002, Warmington defended Oxycontin as a 'miracle drug' with 'very few side effects,'" reported Jake Lahut. "She suggested the opioid was being unfairly maligned. 'Oxycontin has been abused — it certainly has been in the press,' Warmington told a state Senate committee in April 2002. 'I think we can all say that it is a drug of abuse as are all narcotics.'"

Purdue Pharma has been accused of being one of the most important progenitors of the epidemic, and pushed hard for overprescription of OxyContin despite knowing how dangerous the addiction risk was; the company declared bankruptcy in 2019 as part of an effort to settle lawsuits over harm and death caused by the drug. A controversial court ruling earlier this year cleared the way for the company to pay out billions of dollars in settlements, in return for shielding its owners, the Sackler family, from any legal responsibility.

One Democratic operative told The Beast that Warmington's lobbying work makes her campaign a nonstarter. “The ads clearly write themselves,” said the source. “It’s potentially a death knell in a general election.”

Warmington is the only Democratic candidate who has formally declared in the gubernatorial election, where Democrats hope to challenge longtime Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, long one of the most conservative governors in the Northeast. However, others could enter the race; Manchester mayor Joyce Craig has formed an exploratory committee, and both of New Hampshire's representatives, Chris Pappas and Annie Kuster, have also been floated as possible candidates.