Orange and Santa Clara counties joined forces Wednesday in a lawsuit against the nation’s largest manufacturers of opium-like pain killers, accusing the firms of deceptive marketing that spawned an epidemic of addiction and overdoses.

The 105-page lawsuit, filed in Orange County by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, alleges five pharmaceutical companies spent millions of dollars to convince the public that drugs meant only for short-term use by cancer patients should be taken for chronic pain.

The marketing campaign changed prescription opioids from a niche drug to an $8 billion industry by 2010 and contributed to more than 16,000 overdose deaths that same year, putting profits above health, the suit states.

The rise in highly addictive painkillers also created an atmosphere where doctors made life-and-death decisions based not on science but on hype, the suit states.

Rackauckas, in an interview Wednesday, likened the pharmaceutical companies to the tobacco industry. “What we’re after is to make these companies stop the practice of false advertising and false claims that these drugs are benign,” he said. “The effort is to require them to be truthful.”

Filed after an extensive series of Register columns over three years blaming much of the epidemic on drug companies, the lawsuit names Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Janssen Pharmaceuticals – a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Endo Health Solutions, and Actavis, as well as affiliated companies.

All the companies are accused of false advertising, unfair competition and creating a public nuisance. Teva, Endo and Actavis could not be reached for comment.

Robyn Frenze, with New Jersey-based Janssen, responded, “We’re committed to responsible promotion, prescribing and use of all our medications. At this time, we’re reviewing the case.”

Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., issued a similar response, “We have not received the complaint from the local authorities, nor had the opportunity to review it. When we do, we will respond accordingly.”

The lawsuit earned applause from several Orange County parents who have lost children to prescription drug overdoses.

“It’s always been my opinion that Big Pharma is the head of the snake,” said James Kennedy, whose son, Joey, died from an overdose. “They flood the market with a very powerful opiate that shouldn’t be prescribed but for a very small portion of patients. The whole organization is designed for profit, not for healing.”

Jodi Barber, whose son, Jarrod, 19, also overdosed, declared, “This could be a major break in the epidemic.”

Pushing drugs like Vicodin, Opana and Oxycontin, the pharmaceutical companies appealed to doctors and consumers that the dangers of opioids were untrue and that the compassionate treatment of pain actually required opioids, according to the suit.

“They overstated the benefits of using opioids long-term to treat chronic non-cancer pain, promising improvement in patients’ function and quality of life,” said the suit. “(They) dismissed or minimized the serious risks and adverse outcomes of chronic opioid use, including the risk of addiction, overdose, and death.”

Slick campaigns – born in marketing offices and not supported by science – sold the opioids for long-term pain, said the suit.

“The result has been catastrophic,” said the suit.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescription opioids contributed to 16,651 overdose deaths nationally in 2010 – more than twice as many deaths as heroin and cocaine combined. It caused more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. In Orange County alone there is an opioid-related death, on average, every other day.

For every death, CDC reports, more than 30 people are treated in emergency rooms.

“The United States is now awash in opioids,” states the suit. In 2010, 254 million prescriptions for opioids were filled in the U.S. – enough to medicate every adult in America around the clock for a month, the suit states. Twenty percent of all doctor visits result in the prescription of an opioid, nearly double the rate in 2000. Opioids are now the most prescribed class of drugs, said the suit.

While Americans represent 4.6 percent of the world’s population, they consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of opioids, according to the suit.

With the prescription drug epidemic came a rise in heroin use as addicts looked for a cheaper high.

“It is hard to imagine the powerful pull that would cause a law-abiding, middle-aged person started on prescription opioids for a back injury, to turn to buying, snorting, or injecting heroin, but that is the dark side of opioid abuse and addiction,” the suit says.

Pharmaceutical firms, according to the suit, “unleashed the epidemic” by downplaying the risks and exaggerating the benefits of opioids over other drugs, shifting medical convention.

“Defendant Cephalon, for example, marketed its opioid, Fentora, for chronic non-cancer pain even though it was approved only to treat cancer pain,” said the suit. “What makes this effort particularly nefarious – and dangerous – is that unlike most other prescription drugs, opioids are highly addictive controlled substances.”

The companies deceptively engaged a patient base that – physically and psychologically – could not turn away from their drugs. Many were not helped by the drugs, but were profoundly damaged, the suit said.

This is not the first time that the drug companies have gotten into trouble.

In 2007, Purdue settled criminal and civil charges for misbranding OxyContin, agreeing to pay the United States $635 million – one of the largest settlements with a drug company for marketing misconduct. Still, Purdue had national annual sales of OxyContin between $2.47 billion and $2.99 billion for the last five years, the suit said.

In 2008, Cephalon pleaded guilty to a criminal violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for its misleading promotion of Actiq and two other drugs and agreed to pay $425 million.

Contact the writer: tsaavedra@ocregister.com