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Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan[/caption] Harris County has become the latest government body to sue major drug manufacturers for their hand in the opioid epidemic, alleging the companies conspired to push highly addictive medication that harmed its residents. The lawsuit, which was filed today in Harris County’s 133rd State district court, alleges drug companies including Purdue Pharma, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Abbott Laboratories along with five “pill mill” doctors all conspired to get Houstonians hooked on prescription drugs with devastating consequences. “The defendants knew that the use of opioids had the potential to cause addiction and other health maladies,” according to the petition. “Driven by profit, defendants engaged in a campaign of lies, half-truths, and deceptions to create a market that encouraged the over-prescribing and long-term use of opioids even though there was no scientific basis to support such use. The campaign worked, and resulted in an exponential increase in opioid abuse, addiction, and death.” Houston attorney Vince Ryan filed the suit against the defendants along with the help of prominent Houston plaintiff attorneys Mike Gallagher and Tommy Fibich. Ryan has a history of using contingent fee contracts to take on big industry defendants --- a move that was blessed most recently in 2013 by Houston’s First Court of Appeals when used by private lawyers to sue International Paper to force them to clean up environmental waste along the San Jacinto River. Several states around the country have also filed lawsuits against drug manufacturers to help offset $78.5 billion economic burden of prescription drug misuse and the State of Texas has joined a working group to investigate the opioid pharmaceutical industry’s conduct. Earlier this year, Upshur County partnered with plaintiff lawyers in Dallas’ Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett to file public nuisance, fraud and racketeering allegations against drugmakers in a lawsuit currently pending before U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap of Marshall.