West Virginia is among the states that have rejected a proposed $18 billion settlement offer from three major drug wholesalers for damages from the opioid crisis.
The Wall Street Journal obtained a copy of a letter to the drug wholesalers signed by attorneys general from West Virginia and more than 20 other states stating that the offer is inadequate.
“The dissenting states want a larger amount, or for the sum to be paid out sooner than the proposed 18 years,” the Journal reported. “Some states are targeting between $22 billion and $32 billion over fewer than 18 years, according to a person familiar with the matter.”
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey would not comment on the report. However, leading up to the Journal’s story, Morrisey tweeted about the offer.
“The proposed national settlement from the wholesalers is totally inadequate and needs to be redone,” he tweeted. “National settlements to address the drug epidemic should—in large part—focus on where the harm is occurring.”
“Settlements shouldn’t be pure money grabs by the states; monies should be targeted to those who need it the most and spent on abatement,” Morrisey wrote.
That is a reference to the suggestion by some that settlement money be distributed based on population. Morrisey is among those who believe that would shortchange West Virginia.
Our state has a population of only 1.8 million, but West Virginia has been hit harder by the opioid epidemic that many larger states that are also part of the litigation. Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter Eric Eyre won a Pulitzer Prize for stories on how drug companies dumped tens of millions of pain pills in the state, igniting a crisis.
As an example, Eyre reported that during one ten-month period, McKesson Corporation (one of the distributors named in the suit) “shipped more than three million prescription opioids—nearly 10,000 pills a day on average—to a single pharmacy in a Southern West Virginia town (Kermit) with only 400 residents, according to a congressional report.”
After drug companies, doctors and pharmacies tightened up on pain meds, addicts turned to meth, heroin and fentanyl. The number of overdose deaths in West Virginia shot up from a couple hundred a year to over 1,000 in 2017.
Healthcare professionals, first responders and law enforcement are finally beginning to get a handle on the crisis, but it will take years, and untold resources, to recover from the damage done to our people and our communities.
Morrisey was right to join his fellow attorneys general in rejecting the offer and holding out for a better deal for West Virginia.