Attorney General Nick Brown announced that a $7.4 billion multistate settlement reached with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and its owners, the Sackler family, has become legally effective.
The settlement will deliver $105.6 million split between Washington state and 125 cities and counties, with most coming over the next three years. The state will receive 50% and the local governments will receive shares of the rest, based on previously agreed percentages.
The settlement caps nearly a decade of work by attorneys general from across the country in pursuing investigations and litigation over Purdue’s and the Sacklers’ role in fueling the opioid crisis. The AGs launched a multistate investigation of Purdue in 2016, and Washington sued Purdue in 2017.
After Purdue filed bankruptcy in September 2019 in light of massive litigation against the company, the attorneys general have taken a lead role in the bankruptcy proceedings, including negotiating a new settlement after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2024 invalidated provisions in a prior settlement.
Fifty-five attorneys general representing all eligible U.S. states and territories previously signed onto the settlement. It resolves litigation against Purdue and the Sacklers for producing and aggressively marketing opioids in the United States, fueling the largest drug crisis in the country’s history.
The settlement permanently bars the Sacklers from selling opioids in the U.S. and delivers funds for addiction treatment, prevention, and recovery to communities across the country over the next 15 years.
Most settlement funds will be distributed in the first three years. The Sacklers are paying more than $1.5 billion today, followed by approximately an additional $500 million in May 2027, $500 million in May 2028, and $400 million in May 2029. Additionally, Purdue is paying approximately $900 million today.
With this settlement, Washington has now secured a total of more than $1.3 billion in opioid settlement funds.
The settlement also means that Purdue’s manufacturing operations transfer effective today to Knoa Pharma LLC, which will be overseen by a board of directors who had no connection to Purdue. The settlement prevents Knoa from marketing opioids and provides for an independent monitor to ensure it provides these medicines in the safest possible manner that limits the risk of diversion.
The settlement also requires Purdue and the Sacklers to make public more than 30 million documents related to their opioid business.
The settlement caps nearly a decade of work by attorneys general from across the country in pursuing investigations and litigation over Purdue’s and the Sacklers’ role in fueling the opioid crisis. The AGs launched a multistate investigation of Purdue in 2016, and Washington sued Purdue in 2017.
“The powerful opioids that Purdue and the Sacklers so aggressively marketed stole the lives of loved ones across Washington, devastating families,” Brown said.
“Now, through the persistence by our office and AGs across the country, the profits accumulated by the Sacklers and Purdue will pay for treatment centers, support first responders, and help communities across our state rebuild from the opioid crisis.”
After Purdue filed bankruptcy in September 2019 in light of massive litigation against the company, the attorneys general have taken a lead role in the bankruptcy proceedings, including negotiating a new settlement after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2024 invalidated provisions in a prior settlement.
Fifty-five attorneys general representing all eligible U.S. states and territories previously signed onto the settlement. It resolves litigation against Purdue and the Sacklers for producing and aggressively marketing opioids in the United States, fueling the largest drug crisis in the country’s history.
The settlement permanently bars the Sacklers from selling opioids in the U.S. and delivers funds for addiction treatment, prevention, and recovery to communities across the country over the next 15 years.
Most settlement funds will be distributed in the first three years. The Sacklers are paying more than $1.5 billion today, followed by approximately an additional $500 million in May 2027, $500 million in May 2028, and $400 million in May 2029. Additionally, Purdue is paying approximately $900 million today.
With this settlement, Washington has now secured a total of more than $1.3 billion in opioid settlement funds.
The settlement also means that Purdue’s manufacturing operations transfer effective today to Knoa Pharma LLC, which will be overseen by a board of directors who had no connection to Purdue. The settlement prevents Knoa from marketing opioids and provides for an independent monitor to ensure it provides these medicines in the safest possible manner that limits the risk of diversion.
The settlement also requires Purdue and the Sacklers to make public more than 30 million documents related to their opioid business.
In time, we will see how terrible a choice it was for politicians like (at the time) AG Bob Ferguson to make Purdue Pharma the bogeyman for the opioid epidemic. While everyone crows about the money they've squeezed out of an unsympathetic rich family, the tightening of standards for prescription pain medications over the past five years or so has led to chronic pain patients being undertreated and left in horrible pain.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't theoretical for me. My mother in law is one of these pain patients, left in horrible agony by lower back and hip socket pain that cannot be addressed surgically yet. We deny addicts any accountability or agency when they ruin their own lives. We call it an illness, instead of a predictable outcome from their bad decisions. This misassessment of the situation leads to victims, and those victims are older people who suffer needlessly.
The next time someone close to you has a serious surgical procedure and is prescribed 800 mg of kidney-killing ibuprofen instead of the 5-325 mg Vicodin they would have been prescribed in the 2010s, ask yourself whether beating up on Purdue Pharma was the right decision. Now that legal opioid medications are scarce, the theory is that we shouldn't be creating more fentanyl zombies. You can see for yourself every day that the zombies are still everywhere. Maybe -- just maybe -- we should remind young people that seeking to get high from opioids is a one-way ticket to hell, and they have to take responsibility for themselves.
While I do believe that opioids have been overprescribed throughout the years and that this settlement is, by and large, a good thing, there are cases, such as your Mother-In-Law's, where they can be helpful. She should not have to suffer blown out kidneys, excessive pain, or other side effects from less effective medications simply because some people can't or won't take responsibility for their opioid addictions. Opioids need to remain available for those who can truly benefit from them.
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