Amid settlement talks, opioids keep taking a grim toll

As the nation's attorneys general debate a legal settlement with Purdue Pharma, the opioid epidemic associated with its blockbuster painkiller OxyContin rages on in state after state, community after community, killing tens of thousands of people each year with no end in sight.

In Pennsylvania's York County, the coroner investigated eight suspected overdose deaths in a single week of August — four in 24 hours.

"This is a battle that's not going to end easily, and it will be something we are fighting for a while," Coroner Pam Gay said. "It's going to take a while to see a significant decline."

FILE - This July 31, 2017, file photo shows discarded syringes in an open-air heroin market that has thrived for decades, slated for cleanup along train tracks a few miles outside the heart of Philadelphia. While the nation's attorneys general debate a legal settlement with Purdue Pharma, the opioid epidemic associated with the company's blockbuster painkiller OxyContin rages on. The drugs still kill tens of thousands of people each year with no end in sight. (AP PhotoMatt Rourke, File)

York resident Ed Bojarsky got an oxycodone prescription to manage pain from his kidney disease and became addicted, taking "an ungodly amount" of the powerful drug as his illness progressed, his stepmother said.

"You don't need all that medication," Tina Bojarski would tell him. But he "didn't want to hear it," she said. "Because once you have it, you need it."

And when he couldn't get it, Tina Bojarski said, he turned to the streets. Last month, the 36-year-old died of a suspected overdose.

FILE - This Monday, June 17, 2019, file photo shows 5-mg pills of Oxycodone. While the nation's attorneys general debate a legal settlement with Purdue Pharma, the opioid epidemic associated with the company's blockbuster painkiller OxyContin rages on. The drugs still kill tens of thousands of people each year with no end in sight. (AP PhotoKeith Srakocic, File)

"These doctors do this to people. This medication does this to people. And then what are they supposed to do?" his stepmother said.

Purdue has entered a proposed settlement with about half the states and 2,000 local governments, but attorneys general in Pennsylvania and many other states have come out against the deal, calling it insufficient. They vowed to continue litigation against the company and the family that owns it. Days after reaching the tentative settlement that could be worth up to $12 billion over time, Purdue filed for bankruptcy in White Plains, New York. The chairman of the board of directors said in a statement that the company would work with the plaintiffs "to finalize and implement this agreement as quickly as possible," but several states plan to object to settlement in bankruptcy court.

In the meantime, communities are struggling with the personal toll wrought by the crisis as well as a ballooning tab for drug treatment, social services and law enforcement. Since 1999, opioids have killed about 400,000 Americans. U.S. drug overdose deaths climbed year after year for decades, topping 70,000 in 2017 before falling slightly last year.

In this Friday, Sept. 13, 2019, photo, Denise Spence shows photos of her son Timothy at her home in Elk Grove Village, Ill. Spence said Timothy died of an opioid overdose. While the nation's attorneys general debate a legal settlement with Purdue Pharma, the opioid epidemic associated with the company's blockbuster painkiller OxyContin rages on. (AP PhotoTeresa Crawfor)

The coroner serving the Columbus, Ohio, area reported nine overdose deaths in just 48 hours in July. Police in Norwalk, Connecticut, responded to eight overdoses — five fatal — over a six-day period in August and September.

In Wilson, North Carolina, where Purdue has a manufacturing plant, Jonathan Cannon took opioids before moving on to heroin. He died of an overdose at 26. At Cannon's 2015 funeral, his father, Mike Cannon, warned Jonathan's friends — who were also using — to go to rehab or risk meeting the same fate.

One of them did wind up in rehab, and she continues battling addiction, said her mother, Elizabeth Fenner.

In this Friday, Sept. 13, 2019, photo, Denise Spence poses for a photograph by the window of her home in Palatine, Ill. Spence said her son Timothy died of an opioid overdose. While the nation's attorneys general debate a legal settlement with Purdue Pharma, the opioid epidemic associated with the company's blockbuster painkiller OxyContin rages on. (AP PhotoTeresa Crawfor)

Fenner said her 31-year-old daughter, Ashley, became addicted to Percocet so quickly after taking it at a party that she began shooting heroin within a month. Ashley has been in recovery for three years, but Fenner remains wary of the "manipulator" who once stole her valuables to support her habit.

"That's just who she is," said Fenner, who had known Mike Cannon since high school. "I really accept that she has the addiction, and I accept that it's a disease. But I'm trying to work on the anger that comes out of this. I just don't understand parts of it and I never, ever, ever will because I haven't been there."

After their son's death, Cannon and his wife launched a nonprofit group aimed at helping addicted people, but he said Purdue has never stepped up.

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2017 file photo, a medic with the Cincinnati Fire Department nasally administers Naloxone to a man while responding to a possible overdose report at a gas station in downtown Cincinnati. While the nation's attorneys general debate a legal settlement with Purdue Pharma, the opioid epidemic associated with the company's blockbuster painkiller OxyContin rages on. The drugs still kill tens of thousands of people each year with no end in sight. (AP PhotoJohn Minchillo, File)

"Where I really struggle more than anything is they realize they're a major contributor to the problem, but they're not rolling up their shirt sleeves and saying, 'Hey, let me get in here and help,'" Cannon said.

State and local governments aren't waiting on potential Purdue settlement money before taking action, promoting "warm handoff" policies that connect overdose survivors to immediate drug treatment, dramatically expanding distribution of the life-saving overdose-reversal drug naloxone and keeping better tabs on opioid prescribing.

In the wake of at least 16 fatal overdoses, Elk Grove Village, a community of 32,000 outside Chicago, launched a program in which addicted people can ask police officers and other municipal workers for help without fear of arrest, even if they have illegal drugs or paraphernalia. Drug treatment is offered regardless of ability to pay, and local employers commit to hiring graduates of the program.

In this Friday, Sept. 13, 2019, photo, Mayor Craig Johnson poses for a photograph in his office in Elk Grove Village, Ill. While the nation’s attorneys general debate a legal settlement with Purdue Pharma, the opioid epidemic associated with the company’s blockbuster painkiller OxyContin rages on. Johnson created a program in which addicted people can ask police officers and other municipal workers for help without fear of arrest, even if they have illegal drugs or paraphernalia. (AP PhotoTeresa Crawfor)

Mayor Craig Johnson, who helped create the program, said 32 people have taken part, and 21 are "still clean and sober."

One of the success stories is Tom, a 54-year-old who owned a construction company before breaking his hip and leg in a fall and becoming addicted to painkillers. He eventually lost his company and his house.

"All you do is spend your days looking for meds off the street because you don't want to detox. It was horrifying," said Tom, who has since completed Elk Grove Village's recovery program and landed work with a catering company. He did not want his last name used because he's now seeking a job in the medical field.

Gay said nearly all of the overdose deaths in York County this year involved heroin and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that's 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. In almost every case, the overdose victim started with prescription painkillers like OxyContin, she said.

"You can see from their medical records how they were on prescription drugs for chronic sports injuries, pain," she said. "Which is why so many counties are going after Big Pharma."

In Virginia, Scott Zebrowski became addicted to opioids after being prescribed OxyContin for a back injury.

On Feb. 28, 2017, Zebrowski, who was young, fit and managed a gym, took a pain pill a friend had given him. He didn't know it was laced with fentanyl. Zebrowski dropped dead in the parking lot of a Starbucks.

Jill Zebrowski, Scott's twin sister, who lives in Midlothian, Virginia, said she holds Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies responsible.

"I think they knowingly did this. They've caused such pain and heartache for my family and so many others."

Associated Press writers Emery P. Dalesio in Raleigh, North Carolina; Don Babwin in Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; and Mike Stobbe in New York City contributed to this report.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.

Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).

Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.

That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.

Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.

It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.

“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.

It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.

While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.

“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.

Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)