Colorado has expanded its lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the maker of the addictive painkiller Oxycontin, to include its owners and former executives who built their fortunes on the drug’s proliferation, Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Monday.

The amended complaint, filed in Denver District Court, adds several members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, the company that created and manufactured Oxycontin. The company and the family have been targeted by nearly every state in the country in lawsuits pinning blame on them for the opioid crisis.

In September, Colorado sued Purdue Pharma and other opioid pill makers, claiming they downplayed Oxycontin’s dangers and rewarded executives and doctors for prescribing the pills. Denver and 16 other communities in the state also sued the pharmaceutical company in separate lawsuits.

“This is a crisis,” Weiser said. “And it’s a crisis with many causes. One of which is irresponsible companies and executives who put profit over people, who took actions that were wrong, that were deceptive.”

More than 4,500 Coloradans have died during the opioid epidemic, including 543 in 2018, according to state data.

The Sackler family has consistently denied that Purdue Pharma caused the opioid crisis.

The complaint remains sealed, but Weiser detailed some of the allegations at Monday’s news conference.

Purdue and the Sacklers maintained a list of medical professionals in Colorado who prescribed the most opioids and made them the most money, Weiser said.

The amended lawsuit alleges the company and its leaders used front groups and opinion leaders to sponsor and distribute misleading studies claiming the opioids were effective treatments for long-term pain that didn’t give risk for addiction.

The company also created a false medical condition called “pseudoaddiction” in order to counter studies that showed the pills were addictive, Weiser said.

“Purdue Pharma executives and the company need to be held accountable for a crisis that they helped to fuel and profit from,” Weiser said.

Weiser said he couldn’t comment on specific examples of the Sackler’s actions in the state, but said the family “has acted in a way that specifically hurt Colorado and Coloradoans.”

Colorado’s revised consumer protection law closed some of the loopholes that make it possible for the state to recover money from the pharmaceutical giant, Weiser said.

In a statement, Purdue Pharma defended its record, citing a judge’s dismissal in May of a similar case in North Dakota.

“Purdue Pharma vigorously denies the allegations contained in litigation against the company and will continue to defend itself against these misleading attacks,” the company said. “These sensationalized claims are part of a continuing effort to try these cases in the court of public opinion rather than the justice system, as plaintiffs are unable to connect the conduct alleged to the harm described. Instead, they have invented stunningly overbroad legal theories, which if adopted by courts, will undermine the bedrock legal principle of causation.”

The statement added that Purdue is “deeply concerned” about the impact of opioid abuse and addiction — but that the crisis is driven by heroin and fentanyl.

JC Carrica, CEO of Southeast Health Group, has seen the opioid crisis firsthand in southeast Colorado. Five counties in the sparsely populated part of the state and the city of Alamosa alleged in a May 2018 lawsuit that the number of opioid prescriptions in the area exceed the number of residents. The overwhelming number of pills, the counties said, not only led to overdoses and deaths, but also caused spikes in domestic violence, kidnapping and child abuse.

Carrica on Monday said his organization — and others like his — should focus on free or affordable alternative pain management options like physical therapy, acupuncture and personal training as methods to avoid opioid dependence.

“No one should suffer in pain,” Carrica said. “And victims need to know that viable options are being explored in both urban and rural areas to reverse this epidemic that was influenced by the pervasive marketing of prescription pain medication.”

Colorado is one of 48 states suing Purdue Pharma on similar grounds. Nebraska and Michigan are the only states that have not sued the company.

The lawsuits have impacted Purdue’s sales, compelling the company to shrink its workforce and consider bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. Early last year, the company said it would stop promoting OxyContin and other opioids to doctors in the face of widespread public scrutiny.

In 2017, more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses, making it a leading cause of injury-related death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. From 1999 to 2017, nearly 218,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses related to prescription opioids, the CDC said.