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West Virginia to receive $53M through Sackler family opioid settlement

FILE - This July 19, 2001 file photo shows OxyContin tablets at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)

CHARLESTON — West Virginia could receive up to $53 million over the next nine years from a proposed settlement between the Sackler family — the owners of opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma — and attorneys general in all 50 states and U.S. territories.

West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey announced Monday that attorneys general from across the nation have signed on to a settlement agreement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family for more than $7.4 billion. Local governments will be asked to also sign on to the settlement agreement subject to ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

“The Sacklers aggressively marketed their drugs to communities like ours, without a care in the world about the lives they were destroying, only focused on their bottom line,” McCuskey said in a statement. “The settlement holds the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma accountable for the pain they’ve caused our state and our country. Now, hopefully, we can start to recover and turn the page on the opioid crisis.”

In January, McCuskey announced that a 14-state coalition secured a $7.4 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. Of that, the Sackler family agreed to pay upwards of $6.5 billion over 15 years, with Purdue Pharma paying approximately $900 million subject to approval by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

The proposed settlement comes nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the nationwide settlement between 23 states and more than 2,000 local governments with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, manufacturers of the prescription opioid OxyContin. That settlement was for more than $10 billion, with as much as $6 billion coming from the Sackler family itself.

The new settlement agreement would involve large payments in the first three years, with the Sackler family paying $1.5 billion and Purdue Pharma paying $900 million in the first payment, with the family paying $500 million after the first year, another $500 million at the end of year two, and $400 million after year three.

However, McCuskey said that West Virginia will receive its $53 million in a more expedited way, citing the “disproportionate impact opioids have had on the State, its citizens, and its communities.” A bankruptcy court will be having a hearing in a few days to approve the settlement and begin the local government sing-on process.

The $53 million that West Virginia is poised to receive over the next nine years is just .7% of the total $7.4 billion proposed settlement. But according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, West Virginia has had the highest drug overdose mortality rate every year between 2014 and 2022, fueled in the early years by prescription opioids.

The Department of Human Services reported in April that West Virginia continues to see decreases in overdose deaths from a peak during the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting a 40% decrease from January to October 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. West Virginia had a 37.7% decline in year-over-year overdose deaths for a 12-month period ending in November 2024, surpassing the national average.

The funds would be distributed according to the memorandum of understanding that created the West Virginia First Foundation, the non-profit created by the Attorney General’s Office, the Legislature, and county and city governments. The West Virginia First program divides settlement dollars from opioid manufacturers and distributors, with 24.5% going to cities and counties, 3% going to the Attorney General’s Office and 72.5% going to the West Virginia First Foundation.

Representatives of the cities and counties involved in opioid litigation, as well as the Attorney General’s Office under now-Gov. Patrick Morrisey, agreed to a memorandum of understanding in 2023 to create the West Virginia First Foundation. The agreement included all 55 counties and more than 220 cities.

Johnson and Johnson, Teva, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Walmart, Allergan and Rite Aid agreed to a $940 million settlement with the state and local governments for their part in manufacturing and distributing prescription opioids in West Virginia, feeding a substance use crisis. So far, the state has received $290 million through the settlement.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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