Walgreens reaches $230m settlement with San Francisco over opioids crisis
San Francisco has reached a $230m settlement with Walgreens over the corporation’s role in the city’s unprecedented opioid crisis.
The settlement is the largest ever awarded to a local government amid years of continuing, nationwide opioid-centered litigation, according to San Francisco’s city attorney.
The agreement comes nine months aftera federal judge found the company’s failures played a “substantial” role in a crisis that has had “catastrophic” effects on the city, overwhelming hospitals and devastating neighborhoods. The US district judge Charles Breyer also faulted Walgreens for its “15-year failure” to properly scrutinize opioid prescriptions and flag possible misuse of the sometimes highly addictive drugs.
In his ruling 10 August 2022, Breyer found that Walgreens had a profit-driven “fill, fill, fill” culture in dispensing powerful opioids including fentanyl, oxycontin and oxycodone.
“This decision gives voice to the thousands of lives lost to the opioid epidemic,” David Chiu, San Francisco’s city attorney, said in a statement. “This crisis did not come out of nowhere. It was created by the opioid industry, and local jurisdictions like San Francisco have had to shoulder the burden for far too long.”
Walgreens’s settlement averts a trial to determine damages. In a statement, Walgreens said it “disputes liability” and did not admit fault, but that settling would allow it to focus on patients, customers and communities. “Our thoughts are with those impacted by this tragic crisis,” it added.
The Deerfield, Illinois-based company had been the only remaining defendant in San Francisco’s civil lawsuit, after several drugmakers and distributors reached settlements worth more than $120m.
Breyer found that Walgreens’s San
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