OLEAN — The Cattaraugus County Board of Health voted Wednesday to urge the county lawmakers to file a lawsuit against pharmacy companies potentially responsible for a rising toll of county residents’ heroin and opioid overdose deaths.

The only member to vote against the motion was board president Dr. Joseph Bohan.

“If the drug companies are doing something wrong, they should pay,” he said. However, he added that patients bear some responsibility as well.

Dr. Kevin Watkins, public health director, discussed the cause of the current crisis over heroin and opioid use and the increase in the number of deaths of those addicted to pain medication. Watkins reminded the Board of Health they had asked for information related to the possibility of suing drug companies for being complicit in the heroin and opioid epidemic.

He said one drug company, Perdue Pharma LC, had counseled doctors to increase the dose of OxyContin when patients started reporting the pain drug wore off before 12 hours as advertised. The sales representatives said it was not addictive.

When prescription drugs began showing up at parties, legislation was passed to more closely control the prescription by doctors of opioids. That often sent OxyContin addicts with pain to the streets when they could not longer get a prescription, Watkins said. Heroin was cheaper than OxyContin on the street.

Heroin and opioid addiction cost New York state more than $1.2 billion last year, Watkins said. It cost the U.S. more than $55 billion, including $20 million in emergency room visits by people who have overdosed.

The dozens of residents who have died from heroin and opioid overdoses in Cattaraugus County over the past five years had a potential life loss of 1,320 years, Watkins estimated. Also, based on a $41,000 average family income in the county, the individuals who died of heroin overdoses resulted in $55 million in lost income.

Watkins said some of the heroin epidemic costs include:

n 195 people under treatment for addiction at the Council on Addiction Recovery Services;

County Attorney Eric Firkel said five counties including Erie, Niagara, Orange and Suffolk counties have filed suit in New York against drug companies including Perdue Pharma for its alleged part in helping to create the heroin and opioid crisis. Three Perdue executives pleaded guilty in 2007 to downplaying the addictive nature of OxyContin.

The Ohio attorney general is suing Perdue for being a public nuisance. The misbranding of these opioids is “essentially what these (New York) counties have claimed,” Firkel said.

While he saw no cost for legal fees by hiring one of the law firms involved in lawsuits against Perdue and other companies, Firkel said there could be county costs for investigation.

Bohan, the board president, said it “is impossible to put a value on human life.”

“Not everybody who takes these things gets addicted,” he said, adding many patients “don’t want to put up with any pain at all and ask for something stronger.”

Another board member, Dr. Zahid Chochan said pain control became an issue in the 1990s. His advice was to “take some Advil or Tylenol for a few days and you will be OK.” Half the population of West Virginia was taking OxyContin at one time, he said.

Much of the blame for overdose deaths can be traced to synthetic additives to heroin like fentanyl, Chochan said.

Dr. Gilbert Witte, the county Health Department’s medical director, suggested the drug companies should be liable for their actions. The county may not only recoup some of its costs, but it is a low risk suit.

County Legislator Robert Neal Sr., R-Randolph, said a lawsuit would show it was the drug companies, not the doctors who were at fault in getting patients addicted to painkillers.

The Board of Health’s recommendation to initiate a lawsuit against Perdue and other drug companies is not binding on the County Legislature.

The County Legislature’s representative to the Board of Health, Vice Chairman James J. Snyder, R-Olean, said it sounds like the heroin and opioid crisis was not just caused by people recovering from surgery, but “from people who ought to know better.”

“I think physicians are just a small part of it anymore,” he said.

Watkins noted that there have been “deceptive practices” by the drug companies, misrepresentation of trial studies and sales representatives making wrongful claims about products to physicians.

A high percentage of addicts “started off getting a legal prescription for narcotics,” Watkins said. Some people will develop addictions, while some will not. A large percentage started getting their drugs not on the street, but as a prescription.

(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @RMillerOTH)