States across the country have sued major opioid distributors and pharmaceutical companies for compensation due to the unscrupulous practices that have helped to facilitate the opioid crisis. The Wall Street Journal reports that a large $18 billion settlement that pharmaceutical companies were offering up to make these lawsuits end has “fallen apart” and that a letter, rejecting the terms of the settlement, signed off by 21 of the state attorneys general, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, was sent to the companies’ law firms.
The original settlement offer, as it stood, would include paying out the $18 billion over 18 years. The settlement talks have been going on since October, and proceeded the Sackler family’s attorney floating a $10-$12 billion settlement last summer. That offer was roundly criticized as even low estimates have put the financial costs of opioid crisis at around a quarter of a trillion dollars.