West Virginia will receive up to $55 million from a settlement with opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, Attorney General J.B. McCuskey announced Thursday.
The state’s payout is just a slice of the $7.4 billion slated for state governments, local governments and thousands of victims across the United States who sued the company for its role in the opioid epidemic. This settlement is the largest yet from a company involved in the nation’s opioid crisis.
Reaching a settlement
Since Purdue’s highly addictive painkiller OxyContin entered the market in the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents have died from opioid overdoses. Critics say that, under the Sacklers’ direction, the company aggressively pushed opioid sales, even as overdose rates grew nationally.
Thursday’s settlement comes after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a deal with Purde in June. The company pleaded guilty to criminal charges in 2020 and spent years negotiating a settlement with state and local governments involved in the lawsuit.
The previous deal would have granted the plaintiffs $6 billion, in exchange for immunity from civil charges for the Sackler family over their role in the opioid epidemic.
The final deal secured an additional $1.4 million for the plaintiffs and only shields the company’s owners from civil litigation from parties that accept the settlement. The deal also bars the Sacklers from selling opioids in the United States, and removes them from control over Purdue.
Payout to West Virginia
West Virginia is among the states hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, claiming the lives of more than 14,000 residents between 2001 and 2024.
The state entered its lawsuit against Purdue in 2019 under the administration of former Attorney General Patrick Morissey, who now serves as governor. In the lawsuit, Morrisey’s office alleged Purdue downplayed the addictive nature of OxyContin and encouraged excess use of the drug.
“The destruction [the Sacklers] caused not only our state, but our nation, is an evil that is hard to put into words,” McCuskey said in a press release Thursday. “While litigation and settlements will not bring back the lives lost from the opioid epidemic, our hope is that the money from all the settlements through the years from manufacturers, pharmacies, distributors and others will start the rebuilding process.”
Members of the Sackler family continue to deny claims of wrongdoing, according to the Associated Press. But a court order preventing the family from being sued by new plaintiffs expires Friday, unless federal judges intervene.
Alongside McCuskey, the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia helped reach the settlement, according to the attorney general’s office.
States, local governments and individuals that accept the settlement will receive settlement funds over the course of three years. Funding delivered to state and local governments will go toward “opioid addiction treatment, prevention and recovery programs,” according to McCuskey.
In West Virginia, most settlement dollars will be distributed by the West Virginia First Foundation, a nonprofit tasked with dispersing the state’s opioid settlement payments. The organization was legally recognized by the state in 2023, and announced its first round of settlement grants in December.
“West Virginia has suffered enough from the opioid epidemic, and we will continue to fight for the communities that have been shattered by this scourge,” McCuskey said. “We have held those responsible accountable. Our fight now is to see to it that future generations will have the tools they need to prevent this crisis from ever happening again.”