City to get $561K in opioid epidemic settlement

The Henderson City Council on Tuesday approved receiving more than $560,000 to settle litigation with one of the largest entities tied to the nationwide opioid epidemic.

The city was awarded $748,827.82, but will receive $561,620.86 as part of the settlement with the Sackler family after attorney fees, according to materials attached to the meeting agenda.

The Sackler family owned Purdue Pharma, the company that manufactured and marketed the painkiller OxyContin. Sackler family members and Purdue Pharma reached a $7.4 billion settlement in January with lawyers representing state and local governments and thousands of victims of the opioid crisis after a previous deal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Councilmembers on Tuesday unanimously approved the settlement as part of the City Council’s consent agenda in a meeting where tensions flared over redistricting proposals. But Henderson Mayor Michelle Romero told the Las Vegas Review-Journal “the vast majority” of funds will go to help people who are experiencing drug addiction and substance use disorder.

“We actually have a policy that outlines what we can and can’t use it for, but the vast majority of it goes toward help for people that have abuse problems,” Romero said.

While specifics weren’t discussed, also attached to Wednesday’s agenda was a menu of options provided to state and local governments that settlement money can be used for. Those options included expanding training in the use of Naxolone, which is administered to reverse opioid overdoses, and increasing its distribution.

For the Sackler settlement, Henderson will receive the sixth-most compensation among all Nevada governmental entities, behind only the state of Nevada (net allocation of $19.9 million), Clark County ($16.3 million), Washoe County ($2.2 million), the city of Las Vegas ($1.2 million), and the city of North Las Vegas ($591,829).

The state secured roughly $44.5 million from the Sackler family settlement, and nearly $1.4 billion in litigation with other opioid manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies like Johnson &Johnson, CVS, Kroger, Walmart, and others.

Those recovered funds are all part of the so-called One Nevada Agreement, overseen by the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.

According to an annual Health and Human Services report, opioid settlement funds, which officials say will be continued to be paid out for up to 20 years, are split into three categories. These categories include the Fund for a Resilient Nevada, which manages the state’s funding and receives 43.86 percent of recovered funds; and local governments, which receive 38.77 percent. The remaining 17.37 percent is added to a fund to match Medicaid funding at the local level.

In a statement, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, one of several attorneys general to engage in opioid litigation, told the Review-Journal Tuesday that the One Nevada Agreement has been one of the most important things he’s achieved in his tenure.

“Through this agreement, local governments in Nevada have received funds to mitigate the opioid crisis in their communities,” Ford’s statement said.

Contact Casey Harrison at charrison@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Casey_Harrison1 on X or @casey-harrison.bsky.social on Bluesky. The Associated Press contributed to this report.