Written by Mark Metcalf, Kentucky’s State Treasurer & member of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission
As Kentucky’s State Treasurer, a member of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, and a former-state and federal prosecutor, I am deeply committed to the fight against opioid addiction. This epidemic has shattered Kentucky families and prompted a tragic death toll. From 2022 through 2023, 4,119 Kentuckians died from drug overdoses, while at nearly the same time a 2021 study from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported drug rehabilitation and medical care for Kentucky’s addicted cost taxpayers $24.5 billion in Medicaid expenses.
Despite these deaths and the damages both physical and monetary, Kentucky is making significant strides to address this crisis. However, much more remains to be done—especially in holding accountable the pharmaceutical manufacturers which played a critical role in perpetuating this tragedy. But the manufacturers are not alone.
McKinsey & Company—the global consulting firm that advised Purdue Pharma and
others how they could “turbocharge” their sales by minimizing the addictive effects of opioids—reached a settlement in 2022 with state and local governments across the country, agreeing to pay $207 million to cities and counties and another $23 million to school districts impacted by this crisis.
These funds are crucial in our efforts to undo the devastation Kentucky has suffered. Opioid abuse has hollowed out urban and rural communities alike and left local governments unable to respond to increased jail costs and even greater expenses in supporting police, courts, and prosecutors. These costs, the CDC found, added $348 million in unplanned expenditures, all of it borne by Kentucky taxpayers. Used in our schools, these dollars will better educate our children about the lethal risks posed by such powerful analgesics even when prescribed.
Along with my fellow Commissioners, I am determined to direct these settlement funds effectively and transparently, ensuring they reach those who need them the most—our children, our schools, and our local agencies. I am equally determined that Kentucky remains at the forefront of this fight, using every tool at our disposal to safeguard our communities, support those who still struggle with addiction, and assure taxpayers that the pharmaceutical industry and its consultants make full restitution for our losses.
Just as important, we must also demand that government agencies scrutinize their relationships with firms like McKinsey and take those actions, including barring them from state contracts, until the struggling communities they helped to destroy are rebuilt.
In advancing these objectives, Kentucky will make the difference that just ends demand, remaining steadfast in serving the many whose injuries are still healing and reassuring those who have borne the heaviest costs in lives and futures lost that our work to make them whole is fully underway.
