A major victory in the fight against the opioid crisis

This week, I’m excited to announce that the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office has secured a $54 million settlement in the fight against the opioid crisis.

This money is the result of a settlement agreement with Allergan and Teva, two former defendants in the recent landmark opioid case we’ve been prosecuting. As one of the nation’s initial bellwether trials against the opioid industry, our lawsuit has been the first to seek to hold accountable all three parts in the opioid supply chain – manufacturers, distributors, and retail pharmacies.

Click here if you want to read more about this case.

Opioids have wreaked havoc across our nation, and cities like ours have shouldered the burden of the epidemic. The impact of the opioid crisis cannot be understated. In San Francisco, overdoses have killed more people than COVID-19 during the first two years of the pandemic – 711 deaths in 2020 and 645 in 2021. On a typical day at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital’s Emergency Department, approximately 25 percent of visits are related to opioids.

This money will give our city significant resources to combat the opioid crisis and bring relief to our communities. Over the course of our lawsuit, the City Attorney’s Office has thus far secured over $120 million in payments and benefits from various corporate defendants from the opioid industry to go towards addressing the impact of opioid use and preventing future overdoses in San Francisco.

For more information about this trial’s history and context, check out my Twitter thread and share it with your friends.

Yesterday, we concluded closing arguments in our trial involving the sole remaining defendant, Walgreens. Our lawyers summarized the evidence of how Walgreens bears significant responsibility for over-dispensing opioids in San Francisco without proper due diligence and failing to report and prevent suspicious opioid orders. We remain resolute in holding them accountable for the crisis they fueled.

Stay tuned for more – and thank you for your support in the fight.