Colorado is set to receive around $81 million from a $7.4 billion preliminary settlement with Purdue Pharma, the company’s owners and members of the Sackler family for their role in the opioid crisis. 

The settlement still faces final approval from local governments across the U.S. that signed on as claimants and certification by the bankruptcy court. After that approval, the funds will be distributed across multiple states and communities over the next 15 years to support opioid addiction treatment, prevention, recovery and other programs to address the opioid epidemic — including to 19 Colorado regions and 78 local governments. 

The settlement with Purdue and its owners — which was announced last week by several state attorney generals, including Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser —  comes seven months after a prior agreement with the defendants was struck down by the Supreme Court. The agreement rejected in June 2024 would have granted the Sackler family immunity from future opioid lawsuits, which  the Supreme Court ruled the family was not entitled to.

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The new deal does not include this condition “but rather is built on consensual releases in exchange for the payments the Sacklers will be making,” according to the news release from Weiser’s office. 

“After years of litigation, the Sacklers and their company are finally being held accountable for their wrongful conduct” in “creating and fueling the opioid crisis,” Weiser’s statement adds. 

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If approved, over 30 million documents related to Purdue Pharma’s opioid business would be made public. 

The company’s future will be left in the hands of a board of trustees selected by the states and creditors receiving funds in the settlement. It will be monitored and stopped from lobbying or marketing opioids under the deal, according to Weiser’s office. 

This is the latest in a number of lawsuits targeting those responsible for creating and fueling the country’s opioid crisis. 

In Colorado, the Purdue agreement brings the total amount of opioid settlement funds to $868 million including monies from the Allergan, CVS, Distributors, Endo, Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt, McKinsey, Teva, Walgreens and Walmart settlements. 

The first round of Colorado’s opioid settlement funds was distributed in 2022 to regions and participating local governments. While local governments could choose to cede their funds to the 19 regional councils created by the state, 78 chose to receive their funding shares separately.

Sixty percentof funds go toward 19 regional opioid abatement councils, with 20% going to local governments, 10% to abatement infrastructure, and 10% to the state. 

There are five buckets in which the money from the settlements can be used: prevention and education, treatment, recovery, harm reduction, and criminal justice.

The 19 Colorado regional councils are governed by steering committees comprised of local electeds and officials. These committees were tasked with creating a two-year plan covering 2023 and 2024, directing how the first batch of money would be spent. The next two-year plans, covering 2025 and 2026, will be submitted to Weiser’s office this spring. 

Two of these regions span the northwest corner of Colorado: 

• Region 1, known as the northwest region includes Grand, Jackson, Routt, Moffat and Rio Blanco counties; and
• Region 5, known as the Interstate-70 mountain region includes Pitkin, Eagle, Summit, Lake and Garfield counties. 

As of Dec. 20, Region 1 had requested $935,000 in funds from the state for opioid abatement planning as well as prevention and recovery programs. The latter included school-based programs to prevent drug misuse, support for recovery housing, substance use prevention, distribution of the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan to public entities, data collection, drug take-back disposal programs and more. 

By the same date, Region 5 had requested $1.8 million toward treatment, recovery, prevention and harm reduction programs.

Karina Schorr, the coordinator for the Region 5 Opioid Abatement Council, said the council has used the funds to award contracts to Roaring Fork Valley-based nonprofit High Rockies Harm Reduction, for an anti-stigma campaign and to create a regional data dashboard to better understand the scope of the crisis and drive the council’s future decisions. 

The council has also given capital funding to a new Mind Springs Health medically-managed withdrawal center in Glenwood Springs as well as to the Garfield and Summit county detention centers to provide medication-assisted treatment for justice-involved individuals with substance use disorder. 

Schorr added that the council would “be really grateful for some extra funds” as the Purdue deal works toward approval. 

Before this most recent settlement, Region 1 was expected to receive a total of $4.9 million through 2038. Region 5 was expected to receive $9.1 million.