Purdue knowed about the drug was highly addictive in 2003. The raw components in Oxycontin were known to be highly addictive before the drug hit the market. Oxycontin was supposed to "solve" the addiction problem, thus it got special drug labeling saying it was less addictive than other drugs of its class.

They had data that it did not solve the problem but they massaged the data, and hid the data that showed it was addictive, and then later hid the data that after the drug was on the market of the ways it was being abused.

Misleading Doctors and the FDA since 1996

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxy...

I remember seeing news reports back that far - particularly about how people were crushing the drug.

Reporting about Reporting in 2003 - https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/orlando-sentinel-o... (and the pressure applied by Perdue Pharma on the paper after)

2005 - https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=506167...

2007 - http://www.nbcnews.com/id/20327132/ns/health-health_care/t/p...