More Canadians who became addicted to OxyContin are taking the maker of the painkiller to court claiming the company undersold its addictive side effects.

A class-action lawsuit, claiming Purdue Pharma L.P. knew of OxyContin's addictiveness, is to be launched in Nova Scotia Supreme Court next week.

"I'd like to see the people that made it and made money off of it be held accountable for it," George Bellefontaine told CTV Newsnet. "Why should they get rich off of hurting people?"

Bellefontaine, who is joining the suit, said he became addicted to the drug when it was prescribed to him after a car accident four years ago.

"Nothing else really worked on me so my doctors put me on this, and it killed the pain," he said, adding he soon became addicted and had to take more of the drug for the same effect.

"People go to the dentist and get their wisdom teeth out and they get drugged up off of codeine and stuff like that and that stuff doesn't even compare," he said. "Unless you've taken it, you don't -- you can't know how it feels."

OxyContin is a trade name for the drug oxycodone hydrochloride. Purdue Pharma L.P. first introduced OxyContin in 1995 to help cancer patients, but soon the painkiller was being recommended for moderate and severe pain. Sales took off, with an estimated $1.6 billion in worldwide revenues in 2003. That same year, Canadian pharmacists dispensed 2.8 million prescriptions for oxycodone drugs.

"It makes you feel taken advantage of, and misled," Bellefontaine said. "Like you go to your doctors trusting your doctors, and when you have these companies misleading the doctors and that, you don't really know who to trust anymore."

By 2005, after 10 years on the market, Purdue faced almost 400 lawsuits in the United States and was criticized by both the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for aggressive marketing tactics that encourage physicians to prescribe OxyContin.

In May, the manufacturer pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to misbranding the drug. The company and some of its executives agreed to pay a total of $634 million, including the $160 million for Medicaid reimbursement.

The Atlantic Canadian plaintiffs will be partnering with an earlier class action filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. That claim was filed in June by the law firms of Rochon Genova LLP and Siskinds LLP.