FLINT, MI -- The city has joined other Michigan municipalities suing big pharmaceutical companies for creating a hazard to public health through the production and spread of opioids.

“We’re done. Enough is enough. We’re taking back the city,” Mayor Karen Weaver said Tuesday, Feb. 19, at a news conference to announce the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court.

The 111-page complaint against 21 drug companies claim they used false, deceptive and unfair marketing to promote drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone in order to boost profits while looking “the other way -- or worse -- as the (opioid) epidemic unfolded.”

Flint is represented in the lawsuit by two law firms -- Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles P.C. of Montgomery, Ala., and The CK Hoffler Firm of Atlanta.

Tricia P. Hoffler of the Hoffler Firm said Flint has been disproportionately impacted by opioid addiction and forced to use city police and fire resources to combat drug overdoses.

Flint will pay the law firms a percentage of any judgement or settlement it receives -- “the lion’s share” -- Hoffler said, which will depend on court rulings and the cost of litigation.

The city is the latest community in Michigan and across the country to join in multi-jurisdictional federal civil lawsuits seeking damages for opioid-related deaths, treatment and public safety costs.

Late last year, the Drug Enforcement Administration said in its National Drug Threat Assessment that heroin, fentanyl and other opioids continue to be the highest drug threat in the nation.

That assessment came after the first wave of communities -- including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Genesee County, Saginaw and Lansing -- sought judgments against drugmakers and pharmacies involved in production and sale of the drugs.

Flint’s lawsuit names defendants including Purdue Pharma, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Johnson & Johnson.

It asks that the city be awarded the cost of providing medical care for patients suffering from opioid-related addiction or disease, including infants born with opioid-related medical conditions, and costs associated with law enforcement and public safety.

The city says Genesee County, including Flint, had an opioid prescribing rate of 119.7 for every 100 people in 2016, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and says Flint is among the 10 Michigan cities with the highest number of drug-related overdose deaths between 2013 and 2015.

Police Chief Tim Johnson said officers have seen “an unprecedented number of opioid-related overdoes, crimes and deaths.”

“Our resources throughout the police department have been severely drained ... A lot of the city’s robberies, larcenies and burglaries are committed by opioid users,” Johnson said.

The Rev. Bernadel Jefferson joined in the city’s press conference Tuesday, saying the opioid crisis has affected every part of the city.

“We stand together because it affects our organizations. It affects our churches. It affects our community ... It affects families -- not only the mother and the father but the children ...,” Jefferson said. “This is not just one person’s problem. This is our problem.”

Nationally, opioids are responsible for killing more than 183,000 people since 1999, according to the CDC. In 2016 alone, 42,000 people in the U.S. died from opioid overdoses.