Lewis County and the City of Centralia will receive a combined total of $6.27 million in payments from Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s case against companies that fueled the opioid crisis.
The money is part of $55 million that will be dispersed to city and county governments across Washington to combat the opioid epidemic, the Attorney General’s Office stated in a news release.
The City of Centralia will receive $943,286.94 and Lewis County will receive $5,322,623.42, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
The City of Centralia clarified that those amounts are the total of what will be received over the course of eight or nine years. The city received $89,532 from the settlements in March.
The funding for cities and counties amounts to half of the companies’ approximate $110.3 million payment to Washington state this month. The state Legislature received the other half of the funding, which it used to fund additional opioid remediation efforts.
The funds come from resolutions with opioid distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson, opioid manufacturers Allergan and Teva and national pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. A bulk of the March funds came from a one-time payment from Walmart.
“Communities on the frontlines of the opioid and fentanyl epidemic have an urgent need for resources,” Ferguson said. “I fought to ensure hundreds of millions more dollars get to those communities. This money will improve treatment options, support first responders and invest in other proven strategies to combat the epidemic.”
This year, the Legislature appropriated the state’s half of the nine-figure Johnson & Johnson recovery, including significant investments to increase access to opioid medication, assist tribal governments’ efforts to combat the fentanyl epidemic, support first responders and educate youth.
Highlights include:
• $3,000,000 provided for the Health Care Authority to increase access to long-acting injectable buprenorphine products.
• $1,500,000 provided for the Health Care Authority to establish high-intensity community-based teams serving people with opioid use disorder. The funding must be used to significantly increase administration of long-acting injectable buprenorphine to people at highest risk for overdose.
• $750,000 provided for support of tribal fentanyl summits in fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
• $2,000,000 provided for a tribal opioid prevention campaign to inform and educate tribal communities about opioid misuse prevention, overdose response and treatment.
• $1,250,000 provided for the Department of Health to purchase a dedicated supply of naloxone for first responders across the state.
• $400,000 provided to increase support for emergency medical services and fire departments in their opioid overdose prevention efforts, including naloxone leave-behind programs, overdose response communications and staffing costs for community-based paramedics serving as navigators for education, resource and follow-up supports.
• $2,000,000 provided for the Department of Health to administer grants to local health jurisdictions for opioid and fentanyl awareness, prevention and education campaigns.
So far, the Washington Attorney General’s Office has recovered more than $1.2 billion for Washington to address the fentanyl and opioid crisis, according to a news release.
Ferguson has now rejected national resolutions with five corporations, netting Washington approximately $200 million more resources for improved treatment options, funding for first responders and other proven strategies to address the epidemic.
In 2022, Ferguson reached a resolution, pending bankruptcy court approval, requiring Purdue Pharma to pay $183 million to Washington — $113 million more than the national deal. Also in 2022, Ferguson’s case against the three largest opioid distributors — McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. — led to a $518 million resolution. That was $46 million more than the national resolution promised.
The Attorney General’s Office still has pending litigation against multiple national pharmacy chains that also helped fuel the epidemic, according to a news release.
