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Drugstore chain CVS will pay more than $5 billion to settle a series of state and local lawsuits over its role in the US opioid crisis.
The company, which operates thousands of locations across the country, announced in a statement on Wednesday that the money will be used to resolve substantially all opioid lawsuits and claims against the company.
If the terms of the agreement are accepted, CVS will pay a total of $5.034 billion to states, local governments, and Native American tribes over the next ten years starting in 2023, depending on the number of governments that choose to accept it.
In addition, according to several specialized media, Walmart and Walgreens, which also operate pharmacies in the country, have reached similar agreements, which would raise the total amount of dollars to be paid by the main pharmacy companies in the country to almost 14 billion dollars.
Lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies in the US have been one of the main demands of US state and local governments in their fight against the opioid crisis in the country.
Every year, thousands of Americans die from opioid overdoses, which are found in painkillers that pharmaceutical companies advertised in the late 1990s as safe, non-addictive substances.
According to many of the plaintiffs, the pharmacy companies helped create a public nuisance by ignoring the abusive consumption of their products by many of their users.
