>> This is pbs newshour west,
and from our bureau at the
Walter Cronkite school of
journalism at Arizona state
university.
Geoff: Purdue's opioid sales
earned the sackler family
billions of dollars, and this
ruling would protect them from
all civil lawsuits.
William brangham has more.
William: Purdue's opioid sales
earned the sackler family
billions of dollars, and this
-- it requires that the sacklers
give up control of Purdue
pharma.
In total, drug manufacturers,
pharmacies and distributors have
pledged around $54 billion to
state, local and tribal
governments for their respective
roles in the opioid epidemic.
To understand where that money
might be spent, we're joined by
aneri pattani, she's tracking
all of this for kff health news.
Welcome to the program.
Just remind us of the contours
of this deal the sackler
settlement, what it means for
the sacklers and what it means
for the people who are suing
them.
>> So this deal has been in the
works for a long time.
There's been almost a year that
folks have been waiting on this
next step in the bankruptcy and
with the federal judge in new
York clearing this for the next
, round.
What it means is that the Purdue
pharma bankruptcy for the
company can move forward and
when the bankruptcy moves
forward for people who filed
lawsuits for the government's
state and local government, they
will be getting payouts from a
total of six booming dollars,
about, and what it means for the
sacklers is that the individual
sackler family members are
protected from any lawsuits
against them, that sort of a
trade off in moving this deal
forward that the judge okayed.
William: It seems like there are
these two competing forces here,
very demonstrable anger against
the sackler family for which
there's a good documentary
evidence that they knew how bad
this crisis was, and yet kept
going forward.
And yet also this desire on
behalf of all these states and
communities to get that money to
try to ameliorate.
That's a very difficult tension
to navigate.
>> Yeah, I think I've been
hearing that from a lot of folks
where people have been waiting
for the bankruptcy to move
forward for a long time.
Individual families want the
money, right.
I hear from grandparents who are
raising their grandkids because
their sons or daughters died of
the opioid crisis and those
bills are coming in now.
Like the caring for them, their
school, their health, whatever
it is, families that are dealing
with funeral costs for people
who have died of overdoses so
they need the money now and then
you talk about the governments
that want to start addiction
treatment programs or recovery
housing, but at the same time,
the way this money is moving
forward and actually getting out
to people is by protecting the
sackler family from any personal
responsibility and the same
family members who want the
money in the same communities
that need it.
Also feel like there should be
some personal responsibility for
what happened.
William: What they're going to
have to live with.
Now that the money comes that
comes with this other
stipulation.
As you and many others have been
reporting, the sackler money is
just part of this other bigger
pot of money from a lot of
different from pharmacies or
distributors from other
manufacturers, 50 plus billion
dollars that's out there.
Give us a sense of how that
money is going to be spent,
generally speaking.
>> Right.
So that money is coming from a
lot of different companies and
they each have slightly
different settlement agreements.
Most of them require that at
least 85% of the money that any
state gets be spent on what's
called opioid remediation,
essentially programs that will
address addiction, as it exists
now, or prevent it in the
future.
But what that actually looks
like is it really varies from
state to state.
There are some state local
governments that are investing
heavily in mental health
programs and prevention in
schools and addiction treatment
for people who are uninsured and
naloxone.
There are others that are
investing in their law
enforcement and you know, police
efforts and criminal justice
drug courts, things like that.
So it really runs the gamut and
kind of depends on local entity
and what they think is important
when it comes to addressing the
opioid crisis.
William: On some level you can
understand, you want to give us
the flexibility to say hey, we
really need the money for this.
But there are no stipulations as
far as the term you used as far
as how this money has to be
spent.
There's no, it doesn't have to
always go to what we most
directly think of as drug
prevention and drug treatment.
>> Yeah, so the settlement
agreements have this list called
exhibit II, that puts out
potential strategies that local
government might want to use and
includes a lot of the things
that I just listed, but it's not
exhaustive.
So if you're a government
official, you can choose to use
the money in something that's
not on that list either.
And this is where you get into
the loose interpretation
sometimes.
So there are some governments
reported in one local county in
Tennessee that use a lot of the
money to pay back their debt and
their capital projects fund
because they said you know for
years, we've been paying for
improvements to the jail because
it's been helping people largely
due to addiction related crime.
And so how folks interpret what
is related to the opioid crisis
really varies widely.
William: That's kind of what the
concern was back in the 90s of
the big tobacco settlement to
that, we don't know we think
that money is going to go to
tobacco prevention and smoking
cessation, but not always.
>> Yeah, exactly.
And most of that money didn't go
to tobacco or antismoking
programs at all.
In fact, about a campaign for
tobacco free kids whose practice
that's about 3% of the annual
payout.
The rest of it has gone to
everything you can imagine like
filling state budget gaps
transportation, paving roads and
, filling potholes in north
Carolina, something I've
actually used it to subsidize
tobacco farmers.
The one difference I'll mention
though, is that tobacco
settlement didn't have any
requirements for the money to be
spent on it, so it was sort of
assumed that because the money
was coming because of the public
health crisis caused by
cigarettes that it would be used
for that, but it wasn't actually
a legal requirement.
It does have that requirement
that 85% of the money be spent
on opioid remediation.
I think there's a lot of
questions about how that will be
enforced and if that will really
come true, but that clause was
in there because people do not
want to see a repeat.
William: Interesting.
So if I am an individual or
someone in the community.
And I've been perhaps part of
one of these students and have
been harmed in some very direct
way.
I don't really have a mechanism
to say, hey, we need to be
spending this money on this
versus that.
>> You may, it really depends
where you're located.
So first of all to clarify,
because I know a lot of people
ask that, you know, are the
families getting money directly
from the Purdue bankruptcy?
Yes, and from one other mountain
-- from one other bankruptcy
there are payments to
, individuals who filed claims,
but the vast majority about 54
billion we talked about what
-- with opioid settlements are
going to governments and so, you
know, individuals can reach out
to their county commissioners
can reach out to their elected
officials, can we talk to their
attorney general's offices and
say you know I think it should
be sent in this way, but they
will have direct control over
that.
William: Aneri pattani, thank
you so much.
>> Thanks for having me.
♪♪