The county’s share is part of a nationwide $26 billion settlement brokered by state attorneys general —with the three largest opioid distributors Cardinal, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen and Johnson & Johnson. Nearly 4,000 jurisdictions nationwide filed lawsuits in state and federal courts years ago when the heroin epidemic was killing their residents, and budgets trying to deal with the pervasive problem.
County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser advised the commissioners to take the deal, especially since the litigation has been dragging on so long.
“We need to get this thing going for these addicts here, everyday that these settlements keep treatment away from those that need it, people are dying,” Gmoser told the Journal-News. “Nobody is just waiting around holding off from using drugs until they get some treatment money.”
While the court cases are crawling along, fatal drug overdoses have started creeping back up. There have been 110 suspected or confirmed drug overdose deaths as of July 31. There were 177 last year, up from 159 the previous year. The five-year-high came in 2017, when 232 people died.
This money is part of Attorney General Dave Yost’s OneOhio settlement with the major distributors. It stems from investigations by Yost and other state attorneys general into whether the three distributors fulfilled their legal duty to refuse to ship opioids to pharmacies that submitted suspicious drug orders and whether Johnson & Johnson misled patients and doctors about the addictive nature of opioid drugs.
He negotiated on behalf of all the governmental jurisdictions in the state including counties, cities and others. Most Butler County jurisdictions have signed onto the settlement. The global settlement was divided based in part on things like number of overdoses and other demographics.
The commissioners sued 20 drug makers and distributors in federal court in 2017, they sought $5 million in that lawsuit, which is now part of the multidistrict litigation ongoing in the Cleveland federal court. Chief Assistant Prosecutor Dan Ferguson told the Journal-News the three distributors and J&J have now been dismissed but the other defendants are still on the hook.
When the commissioners originally filed suit they said doing so would allow them to have a substantial sum of money to make a significant change in the trajectory of the epidemic. If the higher amount of direct settlement award is realized, the county will have about $317,000 annually to fund opioid abatement, due to the 17-year payout period.
Ferguson said the long pay-out period was by design and for the greater good.
“These are not lump sums that get dropped into anybody’s bank account, they’re time payments,” Ferguson said. “Part of the object of doing the time-payments, I think part of the courts’ object is they don’t really want to see these drug distributors run into bankruptcy, because frankly society needs many of the products they make and distribute.”
It will be up to the commissioners to decide how to spend the money, which could be available early next year. Commissioner Don Dixon early on in the litigation said education and fostering awareness must be a key component, just like the tobacco litigation settlement decades ago. He hasn’t changed his mind.
“I think education is a fundamental part, but we’ll be looking and talking to the experts that can advise on what has the most impact for Butler County,” Dixon said.
Scott Rasmus, executive director of the Butler County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Services Board, said operational costs for the proposed emergency mental health crisis stabilization center — drug addiction is often a co-contributing factor in emergencies — expanded recovery housing, sustaining long-term Narcan distribution and expanding the blood-borne pathogen (needle exchange) prevention programs are some ideas.
“There’s a couple of things right off the tip of my head that this money either up-front, or over a 17-year period would be some good resources to help offset the cost of that kind of programming,” Rasmus said.
Under the OhioOne agreement signed by jurisdictions last year 30 percent was earmarked for local governments, 55 percent to the new foundation districts deciding future distributions and 15 percent to the attorney general’s office.
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