Opioid abuse tells a tragic American story since avoidable deaths began in the 1990s. Nearly 700,000 people lost their lives to overdoses of OxyContin and offshoots of the highly addictive painkiller.
Overdose deaths from opioids are now decreasing, but the damage to the victims, when magnified, forms a large pool of loved ones, friends, and community members.
For those most impacted and waiting for justice, 2025 can be a year of accountability.
Lawsuits have determined billions of restitution dollars are owed victims by OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and other companies that fueled the sale of opioids. States and communities ravaged by the opioid crisis would also receive compensation for treatment programs.
Much of the money hasn’t been paid out yet. A final settlement of $7.4 billion with Purdue Pharma and its former owner, the Sackler Family, occurred Thursday, ending a five-year legal fight over the issue.
Americans can oversee where that money goes. The key is for communities to reach out and grab control.
Aneri Pattani, a senior correspondent at Kaiser Family Foundation Health News (KFF Health News), covers the opioid story. She points out the “public and average readers are hugely important when it comes to watching this money and holding governments accountable for spending it appropriately.”
Settlement money sent to the states will be designated for spending by state and local officials.
Pattani, KFF Health News, and other organizations want to empower people who were victims. They have created online databases where anyone can check and see how much settlement money has been awarded and where it went.
Beth Macy, the author of the bestselling novel and Netflix series, “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America,” embedded as a newspaper reporter in western Virginia at the height of the opioid epidemic. She chronicled the pain and trauma of addicted people and their families.
She writes that they “want there to be consequences, like jail time, because what’s keeping another family of millionaires that want to be billionaires from doing the same thing.”
Money certainly is no replacement for a lost loved one, but taking some control of where and how it is spent can make for a lasting legacy.
If you see something you don’t like, reporter Pattani suggests, “Ask your city councilors or county commissioners how much they’ve received so far and how they’ve spent it. Suggest ideas for ways you think the money could do the most good.”
Here are two databases to track the settlement money. https://www.nationalopioidofficialsettlement.com/Home/StateAllocationAmounts and https://kffhealthnews.org/opioid-settlements/.
Billions of dollars are involved even as no amount of money can repair the human devastation caused by the opioid crisis.