NY to get $458M from CVS, Walgreens for their roles in the opioid crisis

December 13, 2022 Rob Abruzzese

New York Attorney General Letitia James. AP Photo by Seth Wenig

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For decades, street-level drug dealers were vilified while pharmacists who pumped opioids over their counters right into the streets as fast as they could got a pass.

Finally, New York is holding two of the largest drug dealers in the state accountable as Attorney General Letitia James announced on Monday that her office has secured $458 million for New Yorkers as part of two settlements worth a combined $10.7 billion.

“In New York and across the nation, communities continue to mourn family, friends, and loved ones lost to the opioid crisis,” said James. “Though we cannot reverse the devastation, my fellow attorneys general and I are committed to holding those who allowed this epidemic to run rampant through our country to account. We have now recovered $2.5 billion for New York from opioids manufacturers and distributors, and with those funds we will continue to support and expand abatement, treatment, and prevention efforts statewide.”

As part of the settlement, CVS and Walgreens will have to retrain employees and teach them how to comply with more vigorous oversight to identify and prevent fraudulent or suspicious prescriptions.

James teamed up with AG’s from 17 other states in the lawsuit against CVS and Walgreens and eventual $10.7 billion settlement. Through various similar lawsuits, James’ office has now secured over $2.5 billion in total which will be used to fight the continuing opioid crisis locally.

According to the NYS Comptroller’s Office, there were approximately 4,946 opioid deaths in the state in 2021, an increase of approximately 68 percent between 2019 and 2021. That’s 25 New Yorkers per every 100,000 people in the state who died from opioid overdoses, compared to just five out of every 100,000 in 2010. In Brooklyn in the year 2020, the opioid death rate was approximately 18 per 100,000 people.

Over 75 percent of the nearly 92,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2020 involved an opioid, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the CDC, there were 255.2 million opioid prescriptions dispensed in the United States in 2012. The total United States population in 2012 was approximately 313.9 million people.