Stanly to receive $3.7 million in opioid settlement funds from five pharmaceutical companies
Published 5:03 pm Tuesday, February 28, 2023
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During the Stanly County Board of Commissioners most recent meeting last week, commissioners passed a resolution to accept national opioid settlements from five pharmaceutical companies.
County Manager Andy Lucas said the settlement involves Teva, Allergan, CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. Stanly is slated to receive $3.738 million over 13 years as part of national settlements, known as Wave Two, totaling $21 billion.
By accepting the resolution, Lucas can now begin to “execute all documents necessary to enter into opioid settlement agreements.”
Lucas said the county should receive the first part of money from the settlements sometime later this year.
This comes as Stanly has already received two installments totaling $575,000 as part of the $4.7 million it is set to receive over an 18-year period from a national opioid settlement reached in 2021 between the country’s three major drug distributers — Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson — and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. The county is expected to receive the next part this summer.
The settlement, known as Wave One, provided the groundwork for billions of dollars to begin flowing into communities across the country for addiction treatment, prevention services and other expenses from the epidemic. North Carolina is set to receive about $750 million over the 18 years, 85% of which will go to counties and local municipalities.
The combined projected allocations for Stanly County from both the Wave One and Wave Two settlements is $8.4 million.
More than 32,000 North Carolinians have died from the opioid epidemic from 2000 through 2021, according to state data, including 27 Stanly County residents who died from an overdose in 2021. An average of eight North Carolinians die each day from opioid overdoses.
About Chris Miller
Chris Miller has been with the SNAP since January 2019. He is a graduate of NC State and received his Master's in Journalism from the University of Maryland. He previously wrote for the Capital News Service in Annapolis, where many of his stories on immigration and culture were published in national papers via the AP wire.
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