The Opioid Litigation Settlement Funds Summit highlighted the essential role Governors play in ensuring that opioid settlement funds are used to their fullest potential while not supplanting existing resources.
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On July 27-28, 2023, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) convened the Opioid Litigation Settlement Funds Summit in Cleveland, Ohio, with representatives from 18 Governors’ offices to engage in peer-to-peer discussions and share ideas on how to optimize the use of opioid settlement funds.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 110,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2022. Of these, an estimated 84,000 (76%) involved opioid drugs.
While most opioid overdoses are connected to illicit fentanyl use, the opioid overdose epidemic can trace its origins to the overprescribing of opioid drugs beginning in the 1990s. This resulted in thousands of lawsuits brought by states, localities, and patients and their families against opioid manufacturers and distributors as well as drug retailers.
To settle many of these lawsuits without admitting wrongdoing, more than $50 billion is being made available to states and…
