CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County officials on Friday filed a lawsuit accusing several major prescription drug companies of intentionally misleading the public about the dangers of opioids to sell more painkillers as they raked in "blockbuster profits."

The 269-page complaint, filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, claims drug manufacturers, distributors and four influential doctors unjustly enriched themselves as they acted as a criminal enterprise and conspired to break numerous state laws meant to protect consumers.

The conspiracy contributed to the scourge of opioid overdoses that has tormented thousands of families and is now threatening to bust the county's budget, the suit claims.

"We have had enough," County Executive Armond Budish said. "We're opening a new front in our battle against this opioid epidemic."

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley also said his office would conduct a criminal review of the companies named in the lawsuit, and recused his office from representing the county in the lawsuit.

The suit names some of the largest and most powerful companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including Purdue Pharma LP, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Cephalon, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Corp. It also accuses four doctors, Robert Portenoy, Perry Fine, Lynn Webster and Scott Fisher, of downplaying the risk of prescription opioids in papers and lectures funded by the drug companies.

"They manufactured and distributed these addictive drugs in violation of the law, endangering the lives of thousands of our residents, just to make huge profits," Budish said.

The lawsuit was announced Friday morning at a news conference in front of the county's headquarters in downtown Cleveland.

The lawsuit asks a jury to make the companies pay the county for costs associated with the epidemic, and to punish the companies for creating a public nuisance that created a "plague of drug-addicted residents," the suit claims.

The county is the latest entity to sue prescription drug companies over their roles in the current opioid epidemic sweeping the nation. Several counties in West Virginia have filed similar lawsuits against the same three distributors, and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine filed a similar lawsuit against some of the same manufacturers named in the county's lawsuit.

Law Director Robert Triozzi said the county's lawsuit is unique in that it names both manufacturers and distributors, and alleges that the players acted in concert with one another.

Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro unveiled plans earlier this week to file a similar lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids.

The companies have denied wrongdoing in response to previous lawsuits.

Cuyahoga County's suit alleges that the companies knew that prescription opioids like oxycodone, could be addictive and were best used to treat short-term pain in small doses, and that little to no research supported long-term use to treat chronic pain.

But in a quest for profits, the companies launched a years-long and misleading advertisement campaign to underplay the dangers and addictiveness of the drugs and convince doctors to prescribe -- and patients to take -- opioids to treat long-term, chronic pain, the suit claims.

The companies deployed sales representatives, elevated doctors who supported the long-term use of the drugs as paid speakers and funded research that showed the drugs were safe, the suit says. The companies also funded and supported committees and patient advocacy groups to produce educational materials that touted the benefits of using opioids to treat long-term pain, the lawsuit says.

The companies achieved their goal, and doctors, clinics and pharmacists began pouring prescription painkillers into communities across the nation, Ohio and Cuyahoga County, the lawsuit alleges.

The three distributors named in the lawsuit were required to report to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration any suspicious orders from clinics. But the companies, the suit claims, repeatedly failed to report suspicious orders and concealed from the DEA the amount of pills being dumped into communities.

The huge orders would have been clear evidence that the pills were being diverted and abused, the suit says.

The lawsuit doesn't point to any specific suspicious orders in Cuyahoga County that the distributors should have flagged to the DEA. But the county pointed out that they expected the lawsuit to pry that information from the companies and the Ohio Pharmacy Board through discovery.

At the same time, authorities began cracking down on pill mills, spurious pain clinics that were doling out huge amounts of fraudulent prescriptions. The crackdown drove up the price of pills and the street price of heroin down, and addicts turned to the streets.

The result was a spike in heroin overdose deaths that has devastated families and choked resources.

In 2010, the county logged 159 unintentional opioid overdose deaths. That number spiked to 212 in 2011 and hovered in the 200s until last year, when it spiked to unprecedented levels.

More than 540 people fatally overdosed on opioids last year, and the county medical examiner's office estimates that upwards of 800 lives could die this year.

The spike in deaths have overwhelmed the county's resources.

The medical examiner's office has rented two mobile storage units to store the surge in bodies and requested $200,000 to hire new pathologists to conduct autopsies to keep the office afloat. It also spent more than $300,000 to buy new equipment to detect small amounts of drugs.

There are 2,000 children in foster care, the highest number since 2011, and the number of babies born to drug-addicted mothers who lack resources to treat their addiction has significantly increased, the lawsuit says.

More and more prisoners and inmates in the Cuyahoga County Jail come in addicted to drugs and require treatment, and deputies have spent more money and time responding to calls for overdoses and deploying the opioid-reversal drug naloxone.

The county has also promised the Alcohol Drug Addiction Mental Health Services Board, or ADAMHS Board, $39 million in next year's budget.

Though O'Malley appeared at the announcement and supported the lawsuit, he said his office has recused itself from representing the county to avoid any conflict of interest should criminal charges arise.

The county has hired a team of lawyers, including New York-based personal injury attorney Paul Napoli from the Napoli Shkolnik law firm, which has filed numerous lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies in the past. Cleveland attorneys Frank Gallucci, Leo Spellacy and Columbus-based attorney Scott Elliot Smith will also work on the lawsuit.

The lawyers have agreed to pay any court costs on behalf of the county as the suit moves forward. If the county loses, the lawyers will not bill the county. If the county wins any money, the lawyers will collect 25 percent of that award.

The county opted to file the lawsuit in state court, and allege state-specific infractions, so they could have more control over the direction of the lawsuit, and get to present the case to either a locally elected judge or a jury of Cuyahoga County citizens.

It would also ensure that any settlement money or a jury award received as a result of the lawsuit would go directly into the county's coffers, and not diverted through the state.

Officials would not put a number on the amount of money, but the cost of the entire epidemic is in the "tens of millions" of dollars, they said.

John Parker, senior vice president of Healthcare Distribution Alliance, a national trade group that represents prescription drug distributors including McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, said in an emailed statement that health distributors do not make, market, prescribe or dispense medicines to patients.

"As distributors, we understand the tragic impact the opioid epidemic has on communities across the country. We are deeply engaged in the issue and are taking our own steps to be part of the solution - but we aren't willing to be scapegoats," Parker said.

He added, "we are ready to have a serious conversation about solving a complex problem and are eager to work with political leaders and all stakeholders in finding forward-looking solutions."

The move comes one day after President Donald Trump declared the scourge of opioid overdoses a public health crisis. That move, though not providing any additional money to combat the epidemic, would free-up other funding to respond to the nationwide increase in deaths.

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