Baltimore has reached a $45 million settlement with the pharmaceutical giant Allergan over its role in the opioid crisis, officials announced Monday.
The full amount will be paid to the city within 30 days, officials said in a news release, and the money will come as Baltimore struggles with the highest overdose death rate in the country. It’s the second opioid settlement Baltimore has reached this year.
“We are fully aware of the devastating toll that the actions of these defendants have taken on our City, and we have shown our commitment to ensuring that they pay their fair share to tackle the harms they have left in the wake of their greed,” Mayor Brandon Scott said. “We are committed to ensuring that every penny of this and any other amount recovered is put to its most effective and best use to combat the opioid epidemic in Baltimore City at all levels.”
The city will use at least $5 million of the funds for its Peer Navigator Program and $5 million for Charm City Care Connection, officials said. It will also create a board to oversee the spending of future funds.
Baltimore’s independent pursuit of funds comes after it opted out of previous state settlements, including with Allergan, claiming it would need to pursue its own litigation to receive its fair share of money.
It would have only received $7 million over seven years if it had tagged onto the state settlement with Allergan, which was announced earlier this year.
“Our legal team is confident in the value of our case, and we will not be settling for anything that does not take into account the significant resources needed to overcome the widespread effects of the defendants’ actions,” said City Solicitor Ebony Thompson.
In 2021, the city refused to join a state settlement with Johnson & Johnson, an opioid manufacturing giant, as well as AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson.
Baltimore missed out on millions of dollars from the total $395 million settlement, but a trial date is set for September 16 to pursue its own litigation.
Baltimore did join one state settlement with Walmart, however, and it’s slated to receive $7.2 million, the city announced earlier this year.
Baltimore officials have said that money will come on top of the nearly $540,000 it won from a bankruptcy settlement with Mallinckrodt last year, which brought the total amount received from the pharmaceutical company to more than $1 million.
The settlement funds are coming at a crucial juncture, as the city is in the midst of an unprecedented overdose crisis.
The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times recently began to publish a series of articles about the crisis, the first of which confirmed reporting by The Long Haul in February detailing the unprecedented death rate in Baltimore.
There were 1,043 overdose deaths in Baltimore in the 12-month period ending January 2024, an 8.2% increase over the year prior, according to data from Maryland’s Office of Overdose Response.
The death rate was 178.1 deaths per 100,000 people, the highest in the U.S.
Comments