The Kroger Co. has agreed to pay Kentucky $110 million to settle a lawsuit filed last year alleging it pumped millions of doses of opioids into the state over the course of more than a decade.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman (R) announced the settlement Thursday, saying the money was payment for Kroger’s “role in the devastating drug crisis.”
“Kroger and its more than 100 pharmacies across Kentucky were responsible for roughly 444 million opioid doses coming into our Commonwealth over a 13-year period. That’s more than 100 opioid doses for every man, woman and child in Kentucky,” Coleman said.
Coleman filed the lawsuit against Kroger in February 2024, alleging the grocery chain had failed to monitor for suspicious opioid orders and had also fulfilled opioid prescriptions in violation of Kentucky state law.
According to the announcement of the settlement, half of the settlement will be distributed among Kentucky’s counties and cities according to a “pre-determined formula,” while the other half will be entrusted to the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission.
In 2022, Kentucky ranked seventh among U.S. states and D.C. in terms of drug overdose mortality rates, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finding the state had a overdose mortality rate of 53.2 per 100,000.
“We are pleased to have reached a settlement with the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and we hope the funds will be used to combat opioid abuse in the region,” a Kroger spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill.
“However, the claims that Kroger did not have internal training or guardrails around filling prescriptions for opioids are patently false,” they added. “The company has long provided associates throughout the pharmacy with robust training, as well as tools to assist pharmacists in their professional judgement, including, being the first major retail pharmacy to integrate state prescription drug monitoring directly into our pharmacy system.”
—Updated at 5:18 p.m.
