Kentucky will receive $110 million handle his lawsuit He accuses one of the country’s largest supermarket chains of helping with the fuel the opioid epidemicThe state’s attorney general said Thursday.
The state will use the money it receives for its settlement The Kroger Co. to combat an addiction that has ravaged communities and given the state one of the highest overdose death rates in the country.
“This massive supermarket chain that demanded our trust and business allowed the flames of addiction to spread across the Commonwealth, with pain and so much heartbreak in the aftermath,” Attorney General Russell Coleman said in announcing the settlement .
As Kentucky spends the settlement money on prevention and recovery efforts, the company has “agreed to be part of the solution,” the Republican attorney general added.
Kroger, a leading grocery chain in Kentucky, did not immediately respond to a Thursday email seeking comment.
Coleman’s office sued Ohio-based Kroger last February, claiming its pharmacies fueled the opioid crisis. The lawsuit, filed in court, alleged that between 2006 and 2019, Kroger collected approximately 444 million doses of opioids to distribute in Kentucky, representing 11% of all opioid pills sold in the state during that time.
“But what was most shocking was that there was no internal, serious system in place at Kroger to track or report suspicious activity,” the attorney general said. “No training for staff. No guidelines to prevent abuse.”
Thousands of state and local governments across the country have sued drugmakers, distribution companies, pharmacies and others over the toll of the opioid epidemic.
The lawsuits allege that the companies promoted drugs as non-addictive and did not exercise sufficient control when they were shipped. At their peak during the coronavirus pandemic, this class of drugs was linked to more than 80,000 U.S. deaths per year. By then, the biggest killer was illicit fentanyl, incorporated into many illegal drugs, rather than pills.
Drug overdose deaths in Kentucky fell nearly 10% in 2023, marking a second straight annual decline. But the fight against addiction is far from over, state leaders say, attributing progress to a comprehensive response that includes treatment and prevention as well as the seizure of illegal drugs by law enforcement. Although the death toll dropped, nearly 2,000 Kentuckians died from drug overdoses in 2023.
Kroger agreed in 2023 handle other lawsuits on America’s opioid crisis. As part of that deal, it agreed to pay up to $1.2 billion to state and local governments. Kentucky opted not to join the multi-state legal action and that strategy paid off, Coleman said.
“If we had joined the multi-state settlement … Kentucky would have raised almost $50 million,” Coleman said, less than half the amount the state is receiving from its own lawsuit.
Meanwhile, government lawsuits against pharmacy benefit managers are seen as the latest frontier – and perhaps the last big one – in years of litigation over the opioid-related drug epidemic in the US. Coleman filed a lawsuit pharmacy benefit managers OptumRx and Express Scripts.
Pharmacy benefit managers handle prescription drug coverage for health insurers and employers who provide coverage. They help decide which medications make up a plan’s formulary, or list of covered medications. They can also determine where patients go to fill their prescriptions.
A series of Kentucky attorneys general from both political parties – including the current administration. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has aggressively pursued legal action against companies that make or distribute opioid-based drugs.
In the Kroger settlement, about $16 million will cover attorneys’ fees and costs, based on state law and the terms of the deal. The remainder will support efforts to combat opioid addiction.
Half of Kentucky’s opioid settlement funds go directly to cities and counties. A state commission will distribute the rest to groups on the front lines of the fight against addiction. Organizations have until Jan. 17 to apply for the next round of grants awarded by the committee, Coleman’s office said.
Last year, the commission approved more than $12 million in funding for 51 Kentucky organizations to implement prevention, treatment and recovery programs, Coleman said.
“This is real money that does a lot of good in this Commonwealth,” he said.
Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell has contributed to this by sending vast amounts of federal funding to his home state of Kentucky to help combat the addiction problem.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.