The city of Miami claims pharmaceutical companies and drug distributors deceived opioid users with aggressive marketing tactics into believing their products were safe but in reality contributed to the opioid epidemic affecting millions of Americans.

Lawyers representing the city filed a lawsuit Monday under Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act against a host of pharmaceutical companies and distributors led by Purdue Pharma LP, maker of the widely prescribed OxyContin, as well as Janssen, Ortho-McNeil, AmerisourceBergen and Walgreens.

The city blamed drug sales representatives for aggressively targeting doctors for in-person marketing and giving them cash payments.

“Sales representatives from Insys [Therapeutics] and Purdue were the most frequent visitors to Miami with at least 1,398 and 368 visits, respectively between the third quarter of 2013 and 2016,” the complaint said. “These visits frequently coincided with payments to the prescriber for 'promotional speaking,' 'food and beverage,' 'consulting,' 'travel and lodging,' 'honoraria' and 'education.' ”

The city claimed drug reps from the defendants paid roughly $340,000 to doctors in the same time frame.

In 2016, 640 opioid overdoses and 1,717 fire-rescue calls involving the opioid antidote Naloxone were counted in Miami, the complaint said.

Purdue posted a statement on its website saying the company has committed “
substantial resources” to fight the opioid epidemic.

“Purdue has supported many initiatives to combat opioid abuse, such as educational programs for healthcare professionals and law enforcement, and prescription monitoring programs,” the company said. “In addition, Purdue has led the development of opioids with abuse-deterrent properties.”

The city also called out several pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue, for cases against them brought by state law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies for opioid-related conduct.

Purdue and three executives pleaded guilty to federal charges for misleading doctors, patients and regulators about the risk of addiction and OxyContin's abuse potential, the 134-page complaint said.

“As laid out in its plea agreement, Purdue systematically misrepresented the risk of addiction, including promising that opioid addiction occurred in less than 1 percent of patients and that opioids were not addictive when legitimately prescribed,” the Miami-Dade Circuit Court lawsuit said.

In another case involving the painkiller, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman charged Endo Pharmaceuticals “knew as early as 2011 that Opana was being abused in New York, but certain sales representatives who detailed New York health care providers testified that they did not know about any policy or duty to report problematic conduct,” the complaint said.

Schneiderman found “health care providers who were subsequently arrested or convicted for illegal prescribing of opioids a total of 326 times, and these prescribers collectively wrote 1,370 prescriptions for Opana.”

Julie Braman Kane and Mike Eidson of Colson Hicks Eidson represent the city.

“The opioid epidemic is taking a major toll all across America, and especially in our hometown of Miami,” Kane said. “When corporations aggressively and intentionally take actions that injure people and cause significant harm to our community, the civil justice system holds them accountable.”

The lawsuit follows on the heels of a similar complaint filed April 5 by Palm Beach County against a similar set of drug industry defendants. The county is represented by The Ferraro Law Firm in Miami and New York's Napoli Shkolnik and Stull, Stull & Brody.

Many of the cases have been moved to multidistrict litigation in Ohio federal court.