Indiana is expected to receive $507 million as part of a multi-state agreement to settle a lawsuit against opioid distributors designed to bring relief to people struggling with addiction to the drug, officials said Wednesday,
Attorney General Todd Rokita said the settlement marks a step forward in efforts to end the opioid epidemic and provide justice to families affected by opioid addiction.
“While no amount of money will ever compensate for the loss and pain that’s resulted from the scourge of addiction across our state, this significant settlement will go a long way in preventing a crisis of this kind from ever happening again,” Rokita said.
According to the attorney general’s office, the $26 billion multi-state settlement could resolve the claims of both states and local governments across the country, including Indiana’s lawsuit against Cardinal Health, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen.
The deal calls for drug maker Johnson & Johnson to pay up to $5 billion, in addition to billions more from the major national drug distribution companies. AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health are each to contribute $6.4 billion. McKesson is to pay $7.9 billion.
Indiana anticipates signing the agreement, according to the attorney general’s office, ensuring local governments will be eligible to participate. The state’s share of the settlement will be distributed among governmental agencies and local governments as mandated by a law passed by the Indiana General Assembly this spring.
Local governments currently litigating were provided the ability to opt out of the state’s opioid plan. Those local governments have the opportunity to opt back into the state’s plan within 60 days of opting out, according to the attorney general’s office.
Indianapolis, Fishers and Noblesville joined Indianapolis, South Bend, Lafayette and other municipalities last month in deciding to forgo potential payments from the lawsuits filed by Indiana’s attorney general’s office.
About half of Indiana’s cities and counties have filed lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors and dispensers, seeking to recover funds they have spent on police, fire, treatment programs and prevention in response to opioid abuse.
Those municipalities sued more opioid-related companies than the state did and some have said they believe they’ll get better settlements on their own. Indianapolis, for example, sued 20 companies.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
Will any of this money go directly to those people who died or were drugged out for 10 years. The misuse of these drugs was mind boggling. How many of the doctors who over-prescribed these drugs will face jail time or financial penalties?
Quick answer: zero.
The AMA is culpable in this as well. A lot of physicians were just treating patients as directed by AMA- treating pain… Hell, anyone over 35 has pain to some degree and the industry armed to the teeth with pharma reps was out pushing it in full force. This is what you get when you allow pharma companies to use government-funded research only to sell patent protective products for financial gain.
On another note- Pharma DTC ads should be banned. Patients should never be walking in asking for product “X” because they saw it on tv.
I hope the AG realizes that this money needs to go to providing lifesaving resources to those with SUD. No more families should have to bury loved ones.