Opioid Deaths Hit New Record Levels

As the United States quietly exceeded 500,000 fatal opioid overdoses in the past 20 years — with more than 100,000 last year alone — the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors even more quietly approved a settlement with fentanyl manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and three major opioid distribution companies that will “reimburse” the county for the pain and suffering inflicted by the opioid epidemic to the tune of $9.5 million-$22.6 million.

This trickle-down is the county’s share of a $26 billion nationwide settlement with the four companies alleged to have turned a blind eye to destructive and addictive nature of the drugs they so aggressively marketed. Of that $26 billion, $2.2 billion will be distributed to California cities and counties that participated in the litigation. The county’s share — minus 17 percent in attorneys’ fees — will be doled out over an 18-year period and used for drug detox, rehabilitation, and prevention programs. It will also be used to underwrite the cost of programs designed to divert habitual drug users out of the criminal justice system and into rehab.

Although this settlement involved far more money, it garnered far less national — and local — attention than did last week’s legal meltdown of the proposed $4.5 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma, the company widely credited for masterminding the explosion of opioid addiction over the past 20 years. Last week, a federal appeals judge overturned a “painstakingly negotiated” bankruptcy settlement worked out between about 4,000 state and county governments and Purdue Pharma and their owners — members of the now-notorious Sackler family.