Chapmanville participating in new National Opioid Settlement
- WVOW News
- 22 hours ago
- 2 min read
Robert Fields & Shana Nelson | WVOW News
CHAPMANVILLE At a recent town meeting in Chapmanville on September 9th, officials discussed participating in the new National Opioid Settlement.
In January 2025, West Virginia announced it would receive up to $55 million from a $7.4 billion national settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. This new deal came after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an earlier settlement in June 2024. As part of the agreement, the Sacklers are no longer allowed to make or sell opioids in the U.S.
In August 2025, the state of West Virginia also filed a lawsuit against the pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts, alleging it conspired with opioid manufacturers to increase sales.
In an interview with WVOW News, Attorney General J.B. McCuskey explained how Express Scripts was a key player in the crisis.
“They set different rebate schedules for different drugs. Meaning they can promote or un-promote certain prescription drugs. And during the opioid crisis, they had access to all of the data they needed to understand that this was a crisis and that something really dangerous was happening. They had the opportunity to play hero and instead of doing that, they took gasoline and threw it on the fire,” McCuskey said.
“They did things like make certain prescription opiates more available and less expensive and more promoted within the marketplace. So it is our allegation that they were a key player in the explosion of these pills within the state of West Virginia, and we’re going to hold them to account,” he added.
Attorney General McCuskey continued by saying that the only way for pharmacy benefit managers like Express Scripts to take accountability for their actions is through financial retributions.
“We can’t bring back families, and we can’t bring back the stolen childhoods from children. We can’t rewrite history, but what we can do is hold these folks accountable and get enough money into our system so that we can stop this trend,” McCuskey explained.
He told WVOW that there were two goals in receiving these settlements: lowering addiction rates and increasing recovery rates.
“I think the number one goal that we have is to have far less people addicted in the future than we have now. The secondary thing is that we need to provide support for those who are sick now so that they can get back into the workplace and be really productive members of our society.”
Chapmanville town council members agreed in participating and signing-on for the new National Opioid Settlement before the deadlines of September 30th and October 8th.
The September 30th deadline applies to local governments that wish to join the national settlement with Purdue Pharma.
The October 8th deadline applies to how local governments can opt-in to receive a share of the funds from the $55 million settlement. Local government participation is handled through the West Virginia first memorandum of understanding, which details how funds will be allocated and used.
PHOTO | Town of Chapmanville - Facebook