New Jersey is getting $110 million out of a multibillion dollar settlement that dozens of states reached with Oxycontin-maker Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, over their alleged involvement in the opioid epidemic of the past generation.
The decision came late Wednesday, after New Jersey and 14 other states said they would drop their opposition to Purdue’s initial bankruptcy plans. Now the agreement is up to court approval next month.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that while the “deal is not perfect,” it nonetheless means that billions of dollars will go toward “communities ravaged by opioids,” and toward “prevention, education, and treatment programs.”
As part of the agreement, the Sacklers plan to make upward of 30 million internal documents public, a move that proponents say will hold them accountable. And, they plan to pay out $4.5 billion across the states involved and abscond ownership of Purdue, in return for legal protection against any future lawsuits.
The Sacklers initially filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2019 to avoid the onslaught of legal actions tied to their opioid sales practices. Their product OxyContin had fueled the nation’s opioid epidemic for decades, suggested government officials and public health experts.
In New Jersey, the state reported 3,046 drug overdose deaths for 2020, compared to 3,021 deaths in 2019, according to Gov. Phil Murphy’s office.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s office alleged that the Sackler family had become “unimaginably rich” by promoting their pain medications, while downplaying their addictive nature and targeting at-risk populations such as the elderly.
Grewal
“With their reckless push to drive up profits by saturating society with highly-addictive opioid painkillers, the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma harmed millions of individuals and families in New Jersey and across the country,” Grewal, the state’s outgoing top law enforcement officer, added in the July 8 statement.
“[T]hese defendants were morally bankrupt before they ever declared actual bankruptcy,” he continued.
According to a 17-page court mediator report released by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains on the evening of July 7, the Sacklers agreed to increase the pay-out by another $50 million. The billions of dollars in settlement dollars will come out of their own wealth and will be spread out over the next decade.
“This resolution to the mediation is an important step toward providing substantial resources for people and communities in need,” reads a statement emailed by the Sackler family to various media outlets.
