CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey’s office has announced it is part of a coalition of states and other parties that have reached a $7.4 billion settlement in principle with members of the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma for their role in creating the opioid crisis.
McCuskey says Purdue, under the Sacklers, invented, manufactured and aggressively marketed opioid products for decades, fueling waves of addiction and overdose deaths across the country.
“While West Virginian’s lives were being destroyed by opioid addiction, the Sacklers were cashing in every time someone got hooked – getting rich with no regard to the toll their drugs were taking on people, families and our communities,” McCuskey said January 23 in announcing the settlement. “The destruction they caused not only our state, but our nation, is an evil that is hard to put into words.”
McCuskey
| File photo
West Virginia will receive as much as $55 million from the settlement, according to McCuskey’s office.
The settlement ends the Sackler family’s control of Purdue and ability to sell opioids in the United States and will deliver funding directly to communities across the country over the next 15 years to support opioid addiction treatment, prevention and recovery programs.
In emails, members of the Sackler family blamed victims for the opioid epidemic and called them “pillbillies.” In one email, Richard Sackler wrote, “Abusers die, well that is the choice they made.”
“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 from one of the darkest chapters in our history," McCuskey said.
If approved, the settlement will deliver funds to participating states, local governments, affected individuals and other parties who previously have sued the Sacklers or Purdue.
A significant amount of the settlement funds will be distributed in the first three years, with the Sacklers paying $1.5 billion and Purdue paying nearly $900 million in the first payment, followed by $500 million after one year, an additional $500 million after two years, and $400 million after three years.
McCuskey’s office said the money from this settlement will be distributed under the terms of the West Virginia First Memorandum of Understanding. So far, settlements from opioid litigation for West Virginia total more than $1 billion.
Today’s settlement announcement comes after the U.S. Supreme Curt overturned a June 2024 multistate settlement with the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma.
The West Virginia AG’s office first sued Purdue in 2019 claiming the company created a false narrative to convince prescribers that opioids are not addictive and that its opioid products were safer than they actually were. The state claimed Purdue’s sales representatives routinely claimed OxyContin had no dose ceiling, despite assertions by federal regulators that OxyContin’s dose ceiling was evident by adverse reactions.
“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 that future generations will have the tools they need to prevent this crisis from ever happening again.”
Other AGs involved in the settlement are from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia.