Purdue Pharma and the controlling members of the family-run company targeted veterans in an attempt to drastically increase opioid sales.

An undredacted complaint filed against the pharmaceutical giant and eight members of the Sackler family states that this was done with the help of a 'survival guide' that was marketed as a self-help book for post-war veterans.

The 'guide' urged service members to ask their doctors for opioid prescriptions while assuring them that the pills were not addictive unless there was a family history of drug abuse.

Attorney General Maura Healey states in the complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that the campaign launched by Purdue and the Sacklers to target veterans was remarkably successful in the end - at a 'terrible cost.'

'Compared to non-veterans, Massachusetts veterans are three times more likely to die from opioid overdose,' reads the court filing.

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Campaign: Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers released a 'survival guide' (right) that was written by Iraq combat vet Derek McGinnis (right), who lost his leg in Iraq and now suffers from chronic pain

Death dealers: The Sackler family paid themselves $4,273,489,182 (above) in profits from opioid sales from 2008 and 2016 (above)

Horrible facts: At the same time, over 235,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses

The complaint lays out a three-step method by which Purdue and the Sacklers worked to increase profits by targeting untapped groups.

'First, Purdue deceived Massachusetts doctors and patients to get more people on its dangerous drugs. Purdue targeted vulnerable people who could be introduced to its opioids, including elderly patients, veterans, and people who had never taken opioids before,' states the filing.

'Second, Purdue misled them to take higher and more dangerous doses.'

And finally: 'Third, Purdue deceived them to stay on its drugs for longer and more harmful periods of time.'

Step one in the push to get more veterans hooked on Oxycontin was the 'survival guide.'

Exit Wounds a Survival Guide To Pain Management for Returning Veterans & Their Families was released in 2009 by Derek McGinnis.

He is an Iraq War combat veteran who lost his leg when a terrorist deliberately drove into the ambulance he was driving overseas.

He now speaks around the country to doctors and veterans on behalf of Purdue Pharma about his chronic pain, a diagnosis that requires him to be on pain pills at all times.

That makes McGinnis a profit powerhouse for Purdue, but could lead to problems down the line, according to experts.

The complaint cites one study that states: 'Long experience with opioids shows that people who are not predisposed to addiction are unlikely to become addicted to opioid pain medications.'

There is little mention of Exit Wounds' origin online however, with even Amazon making no mention of Purdue or the Sacklers on the book's sales page.

Exit Wounds tells 'the inspirational story of how one courageous veteran, with the aid of his family, recovered and thrived despite near death, traumatic brain injury, and the loss of a limb.'

The book also 'offers veterans and their families comprehensive and authoritative information on acute and chronic pain syndromes afflicting veterans, treatment options, and strategies for self-advocating for optimal pain care and medical resources inside and outside the VA system,' according to its page in the Amazon.

There is only one passage of the book that is highlighted in the complaint, and while it is brief there are a number of alarming comments.

'The pain-relieving properties of opioids are unsurpassed; they are today considered the "gold standard" of pain medications, and so are often the main medications used in the treatment of chronic pain,' writes McGinnis in the book.

'Yet, despite their great benefits, opioids are underused. For a number of reasons, healthcare providers may be afraid to prescribe them, and patients may be afraid to take them. At the core of this wariness is the fear of addiction, so I want to tackle this issue head-on.'

McGinnis later writes in the book: 'Long experience with opioids shows that people who are not predisposed to addiction are unlikely to become addicted to opioid pain medications.'

The Sacklers also allegedly pushed high doses of painkillers and hoped to cash in on anti-overdose drug NARCAN while 235,000 Americans died from the opoid epidemic.

In March, a group of protesters led by photographer Nan Goldin descended on the Sackler Wing at the Met to shame the family

Mortimer David Alfons Sackler, 47, with his wife, Jaqueline. Their Hamptons home has been featured in Vogue. Jacqueline is shown, right, with Ivanka Trump in 2007

The lawsuit claims that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew that patients on higher dosages of OxyContin for long periods were at an increased risk of serious side effects, including addiction, yet they continued to promote the high doses as they yielded the most profit.

In fact, from 2008 to 2016, the Sackler family added $4.2 billion to their already massive fortune in profits derived just from the sale of prescription opioids.

Richard Sackler, a son of a founder of Purdue Pharma and its former president, wrote in a 2008 email to company officials to 'measure our performance by Rx's by strength, giving higher measures to higher strengths', according to the filing.

Jonathan and Mortimer Sackler were also copied in on the email, according to the new disclosures.

Richard Sackler has always denied he was involved in the company's marketing activities.

After making billions selling opoids, Purdue Pharma even considered selling anti-overdose drug NARCAN.

The filing shows a potential plan to study 'long-term script users' to 'better understand target end-patients' for NARCAN.

The plan never went forward but appeared in a 2014 presentation to company officials, including a Sackler family member, which also stated that 'pain treatment and addiction are naturally linked' and that 'there is an opportunity to expand our offering to be an end-to-end pain provider.'

The filing paints a picture of a wealthy family getting richer while overdoses skyrocketed as the opioid epidemic swept the country and claimed the lives of more than 235,000 Americans according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The 275-page suit is set to tarnish the legacy of a family that once bragged they would 'bury the competition' with the release of the highly addictive Oxycontin.

Purdue spokesman Robert Josephson criticized the lawsuit and denied the claims, telling the New York Times: 'None of the documents cited by the attorney general support her fictional narrative that the company was only interested in promoting higher doses.'

The complaint states that eight members of the Sackler family (Richard, Beverly, David, Ilene, Jonathan, Kathe, Mortimer and Theresa) 'paid their families billions of dollars from opioid sales.'

Kathe Sackler, 70, lives in New York City and owns property in Connecticut with her wife

The exact number is listed as $4,273,489,182, though it is noted that 'the list of payments if likely incomplete and not exhaustive.'

It was not just the family who was profiting either, with board members taking home $600,000 annually for their work with the company, according to the complaint.

Members of the family that controls Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma are also defendants in a lawsuit brought by New York's Suffolk County. There is also a massive consolidated federal case playing out in Ohio.

More than 1,000 government entities have sued Purdue, along with other drugmakers and distributors, claiming they are partly culpable for a drug overdose crisis that resulted in a record 72,000 deaths in 2017.

The majority of those deaths were from legal or illicit opioids.

The company documents at the heart of the Massachusetts claims also could be evidence in the Ohio lawsuits, which are being overseen by a federal judge.

The allegations have already started to tarnish a name that is best known for its generosity to museums worldwide including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a Sackler wing, and London's Tate Modern.

The late Mortimer Sackler with his widow, Dame Theresa Sackler who is among members of the family being sued

Brothers Jonathan, left, and Richard, right. Richard headed Purdue from 1999 to 2003 and oversaw much of the increasing sales of OxyContin as it was being advertised

Beverly Sackler is Raymond's 94-year-old widow. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut

The Sackler name also is on a gallery at the Smithsonian, a wing of galleries at London's Royal Academy of Arts and a museum at Beijing's Peking University.

The family's best known and most generous donor, Arthur M. Sackler, died nearly a decade before OxyContin was released.

In its lawsuit filed last year, the Massachusetts attorney general's office went after members of the Sackler family and Purdue, which is structured as a partnership and is not publicly traded.

The company's flagship drug, OxyContin, was the first of a generation of drugs that used a narcotic painkiller in a time-release form. That meant each pill had a larger amount of drug in it than other versions and could get abusers a more intense high if they defeated the time-release process.

The state is asserting that Richard Sackler, a son of a company founder and at the time a senior vice president for Purdue, as well as other family members pushed selling OxyContin even when they knew it could cause problems.

Ilene is Mortimer's oldest daughter. She is pictured in 1999 opening the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology

When the drug was first sold in 1996, the filing said, Sackler told the sales force 'the launch of OxyContin Tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition.'

In 2007, the company and three current and former executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges that they deceived regulators, doctors and patients about the drug's addiction risks.

The company agreed to fines of $634 million.

The next year, according to the Massachusetts lawsuit, the company pressed ahead with a new version of the drug designed to be harder for abusers to crush.

It did so without first conducting trials and despite a warning from the company's CEO that the new version 'will not stop patients from the simple act of taking too many pills.'

Purdue had previously responded to the Massachusetts filing.

'In a rush to vilify a single manufacturer whose medicines represent less than 2 percent of opioid pain prescriptions rather than doing the hard work of trying to solve a complex public health crisis, the complaint distorts critical facts and cynically conflates prescription opioid medications with illegal heroin and fentanyl,' said the company.

A spokesman for the Sackler family declined to comment.