Kentucky would get $460 million in deal to cover opioid abuse costs
Kentucky would receive more than $460 million from a nationwide settlement of lawsuits charging that pharmaceutical companies fueled drug addiction and overdose deaths by distributing too many painkillers called opioids.
Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced the deal Wednesday.
“Today’s announcement marks the end of a long and hard-fought negotiation to ensure that opioid distributors are held accountable for their role in the opioid crisis and that the commonwealth receives needed funds for opioid abatement programs,” Cameron Wednesday in a release.
The deal would settle thousands of complaints across the U.S., but it is not final. If it doesn’t come through, Cameron vowed to continue fighting in court for money to cover costs resulting from opioid abuse in Kentucky.
Kentucky would get the money over 18 years.
Half would go to the state and half to counties and cities. The legislature approved a measure this year, House Bill 427, sponsored by Rep. Danny Bentley, a Republican representing Greenup County and part of Boyd County, to govern distribution of the money.
The total settlement involving state and local governments and drug companies they sued would be $26 billion.
The companies are AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, McKesson and Johnson & Johnson. The first three would pay a total of $21 billion under the deal, with Johnson & Johnson paying $5 billion.
The money that Kentucky will receive if the deal is finalized would be used primarily for substance-abuse treatment and prevention, Cameron said.
Kentucky has been hit hard over the last two decades by abuse of opioids such as oxycodone.
The number of overdose deaths in the state went up last year at one of the highest rates in the nation.
Fatal overdoses spiked by 50% in the state between September 2019 and September 2020, compared to 29 percent nationwide, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said there were 1,956 fatal overdoses in Kentucky during that 12-month period, compared with 1,304 the year before.
Most of the overdose deaths in recent years have been from illegal opioids such as fentanyl, but abuse of pain pills remains a problem, according to authorities.
Fentanyl played a role in over half the overdose deaths in Kentucky in 2019, but deaths related to oxycodone went back up after having declined earlier, according to the state Office of Drug Control Policy.
Kentucky and many local governments had sued drug makers for allegedly flooding the state with pills, ignoring signs that many of the pills were being diverted to illegal sales even as overdose deaths rose.
This story was originally published July 21, 2021 at 4:57 PM.
