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AG Says Ohio's Share of Proposed National Opioid Settlement Is in Limbo

 Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost
Jo Ingles
/
Statehouse News Bureau
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost

Ohio’s Attorney General fears the state might not be able to get the $808 million it had hoped from the proposed $26 billion national settlement with three opioid distributors.

“Right now, we are at a point of deal or no deal," Yost says.

AG Dave Yost says Ohio’s share of that settlement is in limbo.

“We need to get at least 95% of the population represented by the litigating subdivisions in Ohio on board with this. The companies, frankly, are not interested in a deal that leaves lawsuits out there hanging," Yost says.

His office says about 80 percent of the 145 political litigating subdivisions have approved the plan (see the list below).

Though the Ohio Mayors Alliance and the County Commissioners Association of Ohio support the settlement, Yost says there are holdouts, including Cincinnati and Akron. And he says if 95% of the Ohio entities don’t sign on by next Friday, August 20th, the entire deal might fall apart, leaving each entity to fight on its own in court.

Copyright 2021 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.