Opioids

Walmart has agreed to pay $3.1 billion to settle lawsuits nationwide over the impact of the prescriptions its pharmacies filled for powerful prescription opioid painkillers. The deal would still need to be approved by 43 states to take effect.

Since Oregon residents voted in 2020 to decriminalize hard drugs and dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars to treatment, few people have requested the services and the state has been slow to channel the funds. But Steve Allen, behavioral health director of the Oregon Health Authority, says a milestone has been reached.

Oregon officials and lawmakers say efforts to get millions of dollars in funding to treatment centers and related services as part of the state's pioneering drug decriminalization have been botched even as drug addictions and overdoses increase. Oregonians passed Ballot Measure 110 in 2020 decriminalizing possession of personal amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs — the first in the nation to do so.

Washington state health officials say new data shows the number of people dying from drug overdoses continues to rise. The Washington Department of Health said in a news release Tuesday that drug-related overdose deaths in the state topped 2,000 in 2021, a more than 66% increase compared to 2019. Officials say more than half of the deaths are because of fentanyl.

A trial on whether pharmacy chain Walgreens bears responsibility for the opioid crisis started Monday in Florida on the heels of opening statements last week in another opioid trial in West Virginia. The cases are pressing ahead even as companies have been settling many of the claims filed by state and local governments across the U.S.

Money that will flow to Native American tribes as part of an opioid drug settlement with a major manufacturer and three distributors won't come quickly. But tribal leaders say it will play a part in healing their communities from an epidemic that has disproportionately killed Native Americans.

Having rejected a half-billion-dollar settlement offer, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is taking the state's case against the nation's three biggest drug distributors to trial Monday, saying they must be held accountable for their role in the opioid crisis.

At the same time Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is suing three Fortune 15 pharmaceutical distributors for allegedly “fueling the state’s opioid…

Local leaders across Washington have launched legal campaigns against companies that make and distribute opioid painkillers, saying false advertising is…

Ten years ago, Snohomish County was overwhelmed by an influx of black-market prescription opioids. Law enforcement reacted by arresting people and running…