(Photo: David Smart/Shutterstock.com) (Photo: David Smart/Shutterstock.com)

A New York-based local of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades is suing a long list of people and companies linked to the American pharmaceutical industry, saying that they knowingly misled the public about how opioids and opioid addiction worked.

The Sept. 13 complaint is among the latest in a nationwide series of suits filed by unions whose workers have faced opioid dependence, often after years or decades in physically demanding jobs.

The first named defendant is OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sunday amid a flood of lawsuits.

Drugmakers "overstated the benefits and trivialized the risk" of long-term opioid use, Sanders Phillips Grossman lawyer Randi Kassan wrote in the complaint. The companies successfully led doctors to prescribe opioids for common chronic issues like back pain and arthritis.

Union members were prescribed opioids for common pains and after sustaining on-the-job injuries, according to the complaint, but some ended up missing work due to their drug dependence and not the injury that led to their prescription.

The union, which offers health care to its members, paid for nearly every part of this process, from the prescribed pills themselves to frequent doctor's appointments and opioid addiction treatment, according to the complaint.

Insurers pay, on average, $15,000 more each year for each person abusing or addicted to opioids, according to the complaint.

The union is also accusing the drug distributors and manufacturers of racketeering, working together to illegally increase opioid sales in a "shockingly successful endeavor" lasting at least a decade.

Sabrina Strong, outside counsel for Janssen Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement that the company responsibly marketed its opioid products, which account for less than 1% of the country's total opioid prescriptions.

Insys and Rite Aid declined to comment, while representatives for the other defendants did not respond to requests for comment.

Kassan did not respond to questions sent by email. She is also representing plaintiffs including Nassau University Medical Center, Laborers Local 1298 of Nassau and Suffolk Counties Welfare Fund and the Building Trades Welfare Benefit Fund in similar suits filed recently.

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