After a long legal battle, New York State has won court permission to collect $200 million from the makers of opioid painkillers to pay for costs related to the opioid epidemic. The ruling, by a federal appeals court, ends a dispute between the state and pharmaceutical firms seeking to block a law allowing the state to collect the tax. The costs of opioid addiction in the state reached $200 million in 2017—more than twice what it was in 2011—and drug overdoses and fatalities are rising again due in part to the isolation and stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paying for addiction has become a critical issue in many states, including New York, which now have huge budget shortfalls as a result of corona virus-related economic losses. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for example, has ordered cuts in funding for drug treatment to help overcome the budget gap. While $200 million is merely a drop in the bucket of what is needed to combat the opioid crisis, it would help treatment providers to continue offering full services to patients.
The ruling is separate from ongoing opioid litigation, in which states, counties and the federal government are suing opioid makers, drug distributors and pharmacy chains for their alleged role in fueling the epidemic. A master settlement of thousands of those lawsuits could yield a substantial sum to be used for addiction treatment and compensating communities hard hit by the opioid crisis.