Westmoreland County is seeing a minor business boom from gambling. That’s great for Live! Casino at the Westmoreland Mall. It’s not what you want to see at the courthouse.
That makes the decision Monday to join the settlement with major pharmaceutical companies a good bet.
The county is one of the many government entities across the country that filed lawsuits against McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corp., Janssen Pharmaceutical Inc. and Johnson & Johnson.
That suit was filed in 2017, after county Controller Jeff Balzer’s figures pointed to $18.8 million in 2016 alone traceable to addiction to opioids like the prescription painkillers marketed by the drug companies. In 2019, the county commissioners withdrew Westmoreland from a possible federal settlement, preferring to hope for better things.
The reason isn’t hard to figure out. That $18.8 million is just a snapshot of the toll the opioid epidemic has taken on Westmoreland County and its residents. But if you think the coronavirus pandemic has been dragging on, its length is nothing next to the tenacity of OxyContin and Vicodin.
So the $22 million that would go to the county and 11 municipalities is a small drop in a very big and growing bucket. Obviously, the commissioners would want to try to maximize the amount that could be received to offset the cost.
But accepting it was the right call.
The programs dealing with opioid addiction and its legal and social fallout need all the support and funding they can get. They do not have the time or freedom to wait futilely to be made whole; there isn’t enough money in the billions made by drug companies to correct the drug crisis.
Waiting for something that won’t come begs to be lowballed or to miss the opportunity entirely when someone declares bankruptcy. Allegheny and Philadelphia are still holding out. They have even filed a lawsuit attempting to stop the settlement, calling it insufficient.
The Westmoreland County commissioners supported their residents — those dealing with addiction and those affected tangentially — by getting what they could.
There is no way to compensate for the addiction or the overdoses, but doing so isn’t the commissioners’ responsibility. Finding a way to help addicts and families going forward while mitigating the impact on taxpayers is. The county is doing the right thing by not gambling on a longshot.
