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Settlement Money Won't Restore Ohio City Upended by Opioids

Associated Press

   AKRON, OHIO - The tentative settlement involving the opioid crisis and
   the maker of OxyContin could mean that thousands of local governments
   will one day be paid back for some of the costs of responding to the
   epidemic.

   But for public officials in Akron, no amount of money will restore the
   families and institutions that were upended by prescription
   painkillers, heroin and fentanyl.

   "The overwhelming sense of hopelessness that took over this community
   in 2016, you can't monetize that," former Assistant Summit County
   Prosecutor Greta Johnson told lawyers in a deposition in January.
   "Every single day the newspaper was reporting on the overdose death
   rates. You could not go into a community setting where there were not
   weeping mothers talking about their children."

   OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma struck a proposed deal Wednesday with
   about half the states and thousands of local governments over its role
   in the crisis. But criticism by several state attorneys general clouded
   prospects for an end to litigation against the company and the family
   that owns it.

   Some people in Akron say the once-proud rubber capital of the world
   will never be the same. Hundreds of overdose deaths shattered families,
   orphaned children, exhausted first responders and drained government
   resources. At one point, city officials needed a mobile morgue to house
   all the corpses.

   Ohio's fifth-largest city, home to NBA legend LeBron James, and
   surrounding Summit County, population 540,000, were scheduled to be the
   first of some 2,000 governments scheduled to go to trial against
   drugmakers next month. Local officials sought damages from the
   manufacturers they hold responsible.

   Overdose deaths -- which hit 340, or nearly one a day, in 2016 -- took
   a toll on the county medical examiner's budget and her staff. At the
   height of the scourge, they often had to perform two or more
   drug-related autopsies in an average day.

   Dr. Lisa Kohler, the county's chief medical examiner, recalled "the
   mental stress of dealing with repeated cases of having multiple deaths
   in the same families over a period of weeks to months."

   The calls about overdose deaths were constant, and "it just felt like
   it was never going to stop," Kohler said.

   The need for the mobile morgue laid bare the devastating extent of the
   crisis. The trailers were originally intended for a mass-fatality
   event, such as a natural disaster, plane crash or terrorist attack.

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