Kentucky will receive $110 million to settle its lawsuit accusing one of the country’s largest grocery chains of fueling the opioid epidemic, the state’s attorney general said Thursday.
The state will employ the money it receives as part of its settlement with The Kroger Co. to fight an addiction that has devastated communities and given the state some of the highest overdose death rates in the country.
“This giant grocery chain, which begged for our trust and our business, has allowed the fire of addiction to spread across the Commonwealth, leaving pain and so much brokenness in its wake,” Attorney General Russell Coleman said in announcing the settlement.
As Kentucky provides the settlement money for prevention and recovery efforts, the company has “agreed to become part of the solution,” the Republican attorney general added.
Coleman’s office sued Ohio-based Kroger last February, saying its pharmacies helped fuel the opioid crisis. The lawsuit filed in state court alleged that Kroger amassed approximately 444 million doses of opioids for distribution in Kentucky between 2006 and 2019, accounting for 11% of all opioid pills sold in the state during that period.
“But what was most shocking was that Kroger had no internal, reputable system in place to track or report suspicious activity,” Coleman said Thursday. “No training for staff. No abuse prevention policies.”
Kroger, a leading grocery chain in Kentucky, said in a statement Thursday that it hopes the settlement funds will be used to combat opioid abuse. The company defended itself against allegations that it lacked training or guidelines for issuing opioid prescriptions, calling the allegations “patently false.”
The company said it “has long provided in-depth training to staff across the pharmacy as well as tools to assist pharmacists in their professional judgment.”
Thousands of state and local governments across the country have sued drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies and others over the fallout from the opioid epidemic.
The lawsuits allege that the companies advertised drugs as non-addictive and failed to exercise sufficient control over shipment. At its peak during the coronavirus pandemic, the drug class was linked to more than 80,000 deaths per year in the United States. At this point, the biggest cause of death was no longer pills, but illicit fentanyl, which was mixed into many illicit drugs.
Drug overdose deaths in Kentucky fell nearly 10% in 2023, marking a second consecutive annual decline. But the fight against addiction is far from over, state leaders say, attributing the progress to a comprehensive response that includes treatment and prevention as well as illegal drug seizures by law enforcement. Although the death toll declined, nearly 2,000 Kentuckians died of drug overdoses in 2023.
Kroger agreed in 2023 to settle additional lawsuits over the U.S. opioid crisis. As part of that agreement, the company agreed to pay up to $1.2 billion to state and local governments. Kentucky chose not to join the multi-state lawsuit, and that strategy has paid off, Coleman said Thursday.
“If we had entered into the multistate agreement … Kentucky would have received almost $50 million,” Coleman said, less than half the amount the state is receiving from its own lawsuit.
Meanwhile, state lawsuits against pharmacy benefit managers are seen as the latest — and possibly last major — frontier in years-long legal battles over the U.S. opioid drug epidemic. Coleman has sued pharmacy benefit managers OptumRx and Express Scripts.
Pharmacy benefit managers manage prescription drug coverage for health insurers and employers that offer this coverage. They support decide which medications to include in a plan’s formulary or list of covered medications. You can also control where patients go to fill their prescriptions.
A number of Kentucky attorneys general from both political parties – including the current governor. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, aggressively pursued legal action against companies that make or distribute opioid-based drugs.
In the Kroger settlement, approximately $18 million will cover attorneys’ fees and costs, based on state law and contract terms. The remainder will be used to support efforts to combat opioid addiction.
Half of Kentucky’s opioid harm funds go directly to cities and counties. A state commission will distribute the remainder to groups on the front lines of fighting addiction. Organizations have until Jan. 17 to apply for the next round of grants to be awarded by the commission, Coleman’s office said.
Last year, the commission approved more than $12 million in funding for 51 organizations in Kentucky to run prevention, treatment and recovery programs, Coleman said.
“This is real money that does real good throughout the community,” he said.
Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell has supported the effort by funneling huge sums of federal funding to his home state of Kentucky to support combat its addiction problems.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
