{"id":768,"date":"2018-04-04T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T17:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogofnotesite.wpengine.com\/?p=768"},"modified":"2019-07-03T23:33:21","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T04:33:21","slug":"opioid-litigation-nationwide-may-leave-states-with-new-funding-to-combat-the-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?p=768","title":{"rendered":"Opioid Litigation Nationwide May Leave States with New Funding to Combat the Epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Image by frankieleon<\/a>,\u00a0CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the country continues its efforts to combat the opioid epidemic<\/a>, states are poised to receive new sources of funding from lawsuit settlements with drug distributors. Following the success of a claim in 2007 against Purdue Pharma<\/a>, hundreds of plaintiffs\u2014ranging from small towns and counties to larger cities and states\u2014are joining the wave of litigation. To speed up the process, many of these cases have been consolidated; one federal judge in the Northern District of Ohio is currently presiding over more than 400 suits<\/a>, in what some believe<\/a> could be the largest multidistrict litigation in history. Many of the lawyers representing plaintiffs in the MDL met this month<\/a> at a conference in San Francisco to share litigation strategies and discuss the possibility of a nationwide settlement.<\/p>\n

The prospect of such a large payout leaves states and municipalities with a new dilemma: how best to spend the funds. Some have noted<\/a> the similarities to a settlement reached two decades ago with the tobacco industry, involving an agreement to pay $206 billion to states over a span of 25 years. While there was a clear assumption that states would use the funds for anti-smoking campaigns and other public health initiatives, many states\u00a0spent only a small fraction<\/a> of the money on tobacco prevention. One senior attorney for the National Health Law Program voiced concerns<\/a> that payments from opioid settlements will be diverted in a similar fashion. However, early signs suggest that there is a concerted effort among states to ensure that the money is being used to directly address the opioid crisis. For example, West Virginia, which had the highest rate<\/a> of opioid-related deaths in the nation in 2016, has already set aside over $20 million from lawsuit settlements with drug distributors to fund the expansion<\/a> of nine substance abuse treatment programs scattered throughout the state. Lawmakers and pubic officials in other states, including Illinois<\/a>, Michigan<\/a>, and Kentucky<\/a>, have signaled similar commitments.<\/p>\n

Although most of the opioid lawsuits are still working their way through the courts, it is possible that these spending decisions will be made in the coming months. Judge Polster, who is overseeing the MDL proceedings in the Northern District of Ohio, indicated during a hearing in January that he was interested in reaching a wide-sweeping settlement as quickly as possible: \u201c[m]y objective is to do something meaningful to abate this crisis and to do it in 2018<\/a>.\u201d While this potential funding is certainly not the only solution to the epidemic, it is an opportunity for states and local governments to offset the estimate<\/a>d hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year addressing the crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the country continues its efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, states are poised to receive new sources of funding from lawsuit settlements with drug distributors. Following the success of a claim in 2007 against Purdue Pharma, hundreds of plaintiffs\u2014ranging from small towns and counties to larger cities and states\u2014are joining the wave of litigation. To speed up the process, many of these cases have been consolidated; one federal judge in the Northern District of Ohio is currently presiding over…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"BLOG: A proposed nationwide settlement for opioid litigation could give states the cash infusion they need to combat the opioid crisis, detailed in Nina Terebessy's blog, \"Opioid Litigation Nationwide May Leave States with New Funding to Combat the Epidemic.\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-board-member-contribution"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jSvD-co","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2040,"url":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?p=2040","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":0},"title":"Beyond Investment in Research: What COVID-19 Policymakers Can Learn from the HIV\/AIDS Epidemic","author":"Clay Davis","date":"December 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Widespread investment in biomedical research has made many Americans tentatively optimistic about the resolution of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the public sector, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act has provided nearly $10 billion in funding for therapy and vaccine development through agencies like the NIH and CDC.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Congressional Responses"","block_context":{"text":"Congressional Responses","link":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?cat=160"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1520,"url":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?p=1520","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":1},"title":"Can President Trump Withhold Funds When States Expand Vote-by-Mail?","author":"Mindy Acevedo, Michael Cohen, and Sonni Waknin","date":"August 5, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In now-deleted tweets by President Trump, Trump claimed that Michigan sent \u201cabsentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election.\u201d He alleged that the move was done \u201cillegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State\u201d and continued onward to say \u201cI will ask to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Congressional Responses"","block_context":{"text":"Congressional Responses","link":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?cat=160"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1481,"url":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?p=1481","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":2},"title":"Remember the Past: What Can a Governor Do When the Second COVID-19 Surge Comes?","author":"Jeff Thaler","date":"June 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Back on January 1st we thought that 2020 would bring clarity of vision and foresight. Since then the world has turned upside down; however, long-standing legal precedent of what states can do in times of epidemics and pandemics has not. Many are claiming that it is unlawful for any governmental\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Constitutional Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Constitutional Issues","link":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?cat=134"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1404,"url":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?p=1404","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":3},"title":"South Dakota\u2019s COVID-19 Response is a Battleground for Tribal Sovereignty","author":"Anastasia O'Hara","date":"May 14, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In a May 5 post Assistant Attorney General for the Navajo Nation Department of Justice Paul Spruhan argued that Indian tribes should have authority to restrict movement through their territories in order to stem the tide of the COVID-19 epidemic. Those very principles are now being put to the test\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Constitutional Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Constitutional Issues","link":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?cat=134"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2499,"url":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?p=2499","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":4},"title":"Circuits Are Splitting Hairs over Morphed Child Pornography","author":"Julia Zasso","date":"May 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Many will remember 2020 for the various panics it revived: America\u2019s second greatest toilet paper shortage since the 1970s, its first great pandemic since 1918, and another financial crisis. The year also brought back another moral hysteria commonly visited in America\u2019s past: child porn panic. Tech companies caught flack for\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1135,"url":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?p=1135","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":5},"title":"Is it Only a Crime? Domestic Violence, Vulnerability, and the Carceral State","author":"Malinda Seymore","date":"February 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The following piece is a part of NULR of Note's \u201cBring Back The \u201890s\u201d initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. Photo by\u00a0Emiliano Bar\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash When I wrote\u00a0Isn\u2019t It a Crime: Feminist Perspectives on Spousal Immunity and Spousal Violence\u00a0for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bring Back the '90s"","block_context":{"text":"Bring Back the '90s","link":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/emiliano-bar-PaKHbtTDqt0-unsplash.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/emiliano-bar-PaKHbtTDqt0-unsplash.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/emiliano-bar-PaKHbtTDqt0-unsplash.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/emiliano-bar-PaKHbtTDqt0-unsplash.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/emiliano-bar-PaKHbtTDqt0-unsplash.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/emiliano-bar-PaKHbtTDqt0-unsplash.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.northwesternlaw.review\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}