COLUMBUS, Ohio—Attorney General Dave Yost on Friday pressed Ohio’s local governments to sign on to an $800 million-plus settlement proposal from the nation’s three largest pharmaceutical distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson to settle lawsuits related to the companies’ role in the opioid epidemic.
Yost, a Columbus Republican, said during a news conference that at “bare minimum,” local governments representing at least 95% of the population of local governments involved in the litigation need to agree to the proposed agreement. As of Friday afternoon, 116 local governments, representing about 86% of the population of the 145 Ohio municipalities suing, formally approved of the proposed settlement, according to Yost’s office.
Without more local government support, Yost said in rather blunt language, the companies would withdraw their offer.
“Right now, we’re at a point of ‘deal or no deal,’” Yost said. “The companies, frankly, are not interested in deals that leave lawsuits out there hanging, and perhaps understandably so.”
Local governments have until next Friday to decide whether to accept the proposed settlement. Otherwise, Yost said, the state will go to court in Madison County next month.
“The local subdivisions – the counties, cities – none of all y’all have a trial date,” Yost said. “There won’t be anything left for you. If this deal falls apart, you’re going to be picking over last year’s carcass for a few gleanings in bankruptcy court.”
Under an agreement reached last year, 55% of any settlement money would go to a foundation that would pay for addiction treatment programs. Another 30% would go to local governments, and the remaining 15% would go to the state.
Yost said that local officials who have hesitated to sign on to the proposed settlement haven’t told him about their specific concerns. “We’ve just heard crickets,” he said.
The AG said his office would post online Friday afternoon details about which local governments have agreed to participate in the settlement and which have not.
If Ohio goes to court and wins, last year’s agreement would be voided and it would be up to state lawmakers to decide how to distribute any money the court awards.
Kent Scarrett of the Ohio Municipal League said that he hasn’t talked to any local officials who oppose the proposed settlement. But he said a number of local governments have only have been given a few weeks to approve the deal, and some only meet once a month during the summer.
“There was sort of a mad scramble going to pass the resolutions expressing their support,” Scarrett said, adding that he’s “hopeful” that the 95% threshold will be passed in time.
The proposed settlement in Ohio is part of a larger, nationwide deal in which drug distributors AmerisourceBergen, McKesson, and Columbus-based Cardinal Health would pay $21 billion over 7 years. The distributors stand accused of distributing billions of opioid painkiller pills in recent years despite knowing they were being abused by addicts.
The companies also agreed to take a number of other steps to curb opioid abuse -- including detecting, prohibiting and reporting suspicious orders from pharmacies, as well as sharing information about opioid distribution with each other and with government regulators to ensure no communities are over-saturated with pills.
Johnson & Johnson, which previously sold the raw material used in opioids as well as some pills, agreed to pay $5 billion over 9 years and not to manufacture any opioids for the next decade.
Between 1999 and 2019, overdoses from prescription opioids more than quadrupled nationwide, causing the deaths of nearly 247,000 people during that time, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The opioid crisis also cost the U.S. economy an estimated $631 billion between 2015 and 2018 alone, a study found.
The three distributors, along with Johnson & Johnson and a number of other drugmakers and distributors, previously agreed to pay Cuyahoga and Summit counties more than $100 million each to settle opioid litigation.
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