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The family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP agreed to pay roughly $4.28 billion—a larger sum than previously promised—to resolve lawsuits accusing it of helping to fuel the opioid epidemic. The payment from members of the Sackler family is part of a larger restructuring plan filed Monday night in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., that is intended to get Purdue out of chapter 11. (Randles and Randazzo, 3/16)

Under a bankruptcy plan filed late Monday night, Purdue Pharma would pay roughly $500 million in cash up front to settle hundreds of thousands of injury claims linked to the company's role in the deadly opioid epidemic. The company said additional payments would be spread over the next decade, including installments on roughly $4.2 billion promised by members of the Sackler family who own the firm. No fixed schedule was provided for when most of those disbursements would occur, though Purdue Pharma predicted as much as $1 billion in additional payouts would happen by 2024. (Mann, 3/16)

Most of the parties in the case are on board with the plan. But attorneys general representing 23 states and the District of Columbia issued a statement saying the offer “falls short of the accountability that families and survivors deserve.” They want more money from the Sackler family members and for Purdue to wind down in a way that “does not excessively entangle it with states.” The group includes most of the Democratic attorneys general across the U.S. and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, a Republican. (Mulvihill, 3/16)

If the plan is approved by a majority of the company’s creditors and Judge Robert D. Drain of federal bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y., payments will start pouring into three buckets: one to compensate individual plaintiffs, like families whose relatives overdosed or guardians of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, as well as hospitals and insurers; another for tribes; and the third — and largest — for state and local governments, which have been devastated by the costs of a drug epidemic that has only worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Hoffman and Walsh, 3/16)

Diego considers himself fortunate. The 49-year-old man, who is only being identified by his first name for privacy reasons, thinks back on some dark moments in his life —all associated with drugs. He said his brothers introduced him to narcotics when he was 12 and living in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. By the time he was 17, said Diego, who is of Puerto Rican descent, he was not only using drugs, but also trafficking in them. He said the drugs plunged him into a spiral of addiction, fracturing his family relationships and landing him in jail numerous times. (Carrasco, 3/15)