As the US quietly exceeded 500,000 deadly opioid overdoses previously 20 years — with greater than 100,000 final 12 months alone — the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors much more quietly accepted a settlement with fentanyl producer Johnson & Johnson and three main opioid distribution firms that can “reimburse” the county for the ache and struggling 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 4 firms alleged to have turned a blind eye to harmful and addictive nature of the medication they so aggressively marketed. Of that $26 billion, $2.2 billion might be distributed to California cities and counties that participated within the litigation. The county’s share — minus 17 p.c in attorneys’ charges — might be doled out over an 18-year interval and used for drug detox, rehabilitation, and prevention packages. It would even be used to underwrite the price of packages designed to divert ordinary drug customers out of the prison justice system and into rehab.
Though this settlement concerned far extra money, it garnered far much less nationwide — and native — consideration than did final week’s authorized meltdown of the proposed $4.5 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma, the corporate extensively credited for masterminding the explosion of opioid dependancy over the previous 20 years. Final week, a federal appeals choose overturned a “painstakingly negotiated” chapter settlement labored out between about 4,000 state and county governments and Purdue Pharma and their homeowners — members of the now-notorious Sackler household.
The county supervisors had joined that litigation as properly. Many of the county’s ire was centered on the Sackler household and Purdue Pharma within the physique of its 139-page criticism filed in 2018. Attorneys for the county — the regulation agency of Keller Rohrback — termed the opioid disaster “the worst man-made epidemic in trendy medical historical past.” They accused Purdue and the Sacklers — advertising and marketing geniuses who patented and bought OxyContin — of masterminding a diabolical marketing campaign to steer and “bribe” medical professionals all through the nation over the previous 20 years to prescribe their extremely addictive medication. In 1995, the county’s lawsuit alleged, Purdue was promoting $1 billion value of OxyContin a 12 months; by 2020, it projected, the quantity can be $18 billion.
By 2007, federal authorities introduced prison prices towards Purdue — purchased in 1952 by three Sackler brothers who have been every psychiatrists — fining them $600 million. Over the subsequent 10 years, the Sacklers would then withdraw greater than $10 billion out of the corporate, squirrelling the cash away into offshore financial institution accounts. Thus drained of its property, the corporate was pressured to declare chapter within the face of widespread litigation involving no fewer than 800 lawsuits.
The chapter settlement, first introduced in September 2019, would personally defend the Sacklers from litigation whereas doling out $4.5 billion of what was left of their firm. It might later be accepted by a choose in White Plains, New York.
A number of handfuls of attorneys common all through the nation — together with California’s — appealed the settlement deal, arguing that the cash was too small, the Sacklers have been getting away with homicide, and it wasn’t even authorized.
Final Thursday, an appeals court docket choose — Colleen McMahon — dominated that these states have been right as to the elemental illegality of the deal. If the Sacklers themselves weren’t personally declaring chapter, she concluded, they might not avail themselves of the safety from civil litigation that solely chapter affords.
With that deal now unraveled, it turns into pending litigation, one thing county counsel Rachel Van Mullem says she won’t talk about.
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However authorized commentary apart, the county’s personal demise statistics are stark sufficient. Since 2014, 639 county residents have died of opioid-related overdoses. When the ultimate stats are tabulated for 2021, the quantity might be even larger. Of these, at the least 140 died from overdoses associated to fentanyl — a synthetically made opioid stated to be 80-100 instances stronger than morphine. These numbers, likewise, will get larger as the ultimate tabulations roll in.
Most putting is the acceleration of opioid-related overdoses. In 2005, the county reported 27 overdose deaths. By 2015, it was 59; in 2018, it was 85; and final 12 months, it was 114. This 12 months, by November, the quantity was 95.
The excellent news — nevertheless perversely so — is that these numbers may have been a lot worse. Since 2015, John Doyel — who runs the county’s drug and alcohol packages for the Division of Behavioral Wellness — estimates 1,400 overdoses have been reversed by Narcan kits administered by his division and thru Pacific Delight, which contracts with the county to get such kits into the fingers of possible drug customers.
“Most assuredly, the overwhelming majority of those that have been administered Narcan would have died,” Doyel acknowledged. Narcan is the product identify for naloxone — a chemical developed in 1961 to counter the results of an overdose — which is run within the type of a nasal spray. Naloxone will also be administered intramuscularly by way of a syringe-like equipment.
Nationally, it seems COVID has helped propel a rise in overdose deaths. Regionally, Doyel stated, “the jury remains to be out” as to what impact COVID has had on overdose stats. “We’re nonetheless monitoring it,” he stated.
One factor’s for sure: Fentanyl is having a a lot larger influence. Within the first six months of the 12 months, Doyel stated, fentanyl was concerned with 28 of the primary 36 overdose deaths. Final 12 months, fentanyl was implicated in 33 of the county’s 114 deadly overdoses. In contrast, in 2015, it was concerned in simply 9 out of 75 deaths.
In keeping with Kristin Flickinger of Pacific Delight, fentanyl is now added not simply to heroin but additionally to cocaine and methamphetamine. Two years in the past, she stated, it was added solely to heroin. Unsuspecting customers, she stated, may discover themselves taking speedballs. “That may be very lethal,” she stated, noting as properly that fentanyl is a lot stronger that morphine and heroin.
In response, she stated Pacific Delight is now distributing fentanyl check strips in order that customers have a greater concept of what they’re placing of their our bodies. “Some individuals use fentanyl very deliberately. Some aren’t,” she stated. The check strips price a few buck apiece. “Some customers would possibly say, ‘Gosh, I don’t need to use this,’” Flickinger stated. “Others would possibly say, ‘I’ll use much less, slower, and ensure I’ve some Narcan available.” Thus far, she stated, Pacific Delight has handed out hundreds of check strips.
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