Bottles of hydrocodone, an opioid painkiller, are kept behind the pharmacy counter at Kinney Drugs in Saranac Lake in November 2011. (Enterprise photo — Chris Knight)

The Franklin County legislature voted Thursday to hire the Napoli Shkolnik PLLC law firm to represent the county in a suit against pharmaceutical companies whom many believe caused the national opioid epidemic through aggressive marketing practices.

The lawyers will argue that the companies purposely lied to doctors and the public, saying opioid pain medications were not addictive and were safe for long-term use. Many patients prescribed pain medications for short-term injuries or post-surgery recovery became addicted to synthetic opioids such as Vicodin and Oxycontin. When their prescriptions ran out or they tried to stop, these patients faced withdrawal on par with heroin withdrawal.

Symptoms of withdrawal from Vicodin, for instance, begin between six to 12 hours of stopping the pills. Agitation, anxiety, sweating, muscle aches, yawning, insomnia and a runny nose may precede harsher reactions such as vomiting, diarrhea and nausea. Cold sweats and convulsions add to psychological symptoms such as confusion and delirium. Recovering addicts report difficulty sleeping and dreaming about getting high that may persist for years.

Although Napoli Shkolnik is not the only firm suing the pharmaceutical companies, legislators voted to go with it for several reasons. The firm takes its fee from the net result of a settlement, not the gross.

“The previous company’s fee was on the gross amount,” said county Manager Donna Kissane.

The firm represents 120 counties, including 25 in New York state. In a presentation to county legislators last week, lawyers explained that suing in New York rather than federal court gives the counties the advantage of speed. A federal suit is being filed in Ohio, and that suit is being put on hold for a year. Not every state has local defendant addresses, the lawyers explained, so counties from other states must sue in federal court.

In New York state, the suit will be heard in Suffolk County court.

Should there be a monetary settlement of the lawsuit, Franklin County would be able to decide how to use the money.

“A good outcome would be a settlement that offsets the significant increasing costs we are facing,” said Kissane. “When it comes to drug addiction, there’s multiple factors. It’s not a disease that’s fixed, most of the time, with the first treatment. We’d like to put some money into additional treatment options, and into law enforcement.”