Alaska is set to receive up to $12.2 million over the next 15 years after signing onto a settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family
The Sacklers’ former company, Purdue Pharma, made the prescription opioid pill OxyContin. According to lawsuits and company documents, Purdue aggressively marketed the highly addictive drug, downplayed addiction concerns to doctors and ignored evidence that prescriptions were diverted to the black market – all of which heavily contributed to the first wave of the opioid crisis that started in the 1990s.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Law wrote in a statement that the settlement “ends the Sacklers’ control of Purdue and their ability to sell opioids in the United States.”
Settlement payouts will require further court approvals.
“Our first lawsuit addressing the opioid crisis was against Purdue Pharma, and it is great to bring the saga to an end,” Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor said in the written statement.
The state is also set to receive about $1.8 million from a separate settlement with eight other opioid manufacturers, to be distributed over 10 years.
Settlement funds go to Alaska rehabilitation programs for those with substance use disorders, according to the Alaska Department of Health, and some funds from past settlements have already been distributed.
Alaska needs more support to face the opioid crisis, said Willy Dunne, president of Kachemak Bay Recovery Connection in Homer.
“There's a huge, huge need for prevention, treatment, harm reduction and recovery support, and the funds that we have gotten have helped us reach out and help a few individuals, but there's a lot more work to do,” Dunne said. “We're literally just scratching the surface of the need.”
Settlement funds helped the organization open a brick-and-mortar facility in downtown Homer, and Dunne said they hired three peer support specialists, trained to work with people in early recovery.
In total, the state is set to receive over $100 million in opioid settlements over almost two decades, according to the Department of Law.
That’s still considered small when compared to the actual cost of the opioid epidemic to the state. According to a report from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, the opioid crisis’ actual cost to Alaska was more than $400 million in 2018 alone.
Dunne said the settlement amounts are relatively small once distributed to programs, but every dollar toward helping those affected by the opioid crisis is important.
“It sometimes feels a bit ironic to be funded by big corporations that caused the problem, but that's why the settlements were negotiated, to help those who had been harmed,” Dunne said. “But we're never going to bring back the thousands and thousands of people who have died and families that were destroyed.”
Hundreds of Alaskans die each year from opioid overdose, and while overdose death rates have declined over the past two years in much of the country, Alaska’s rates remain high.
RELATED: Here’s one thing Alaska could do to reduce opioid overdose deaths
