It’s impossible to calculate the full impact of the opioid addiction crisis. But it is necessary to put a price on some pharmaceutical manufacturers’ and distributors’ roles in the epidemic.

Recently, opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson agreed to a $26 billion settlement with state governments that had sued them.

The lawsuits contend that J&J downplayed the addiction risks of prescribed opioids, and that the distributors failed to prevent diversion of opioids for illegal distribution.

Pennsylvania would receive a total of $1 billion in 18 annual installments of about $55.5 million.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro supports the settlement, but Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has blasted him for it and has sued to prevent the state from compelling Philadelphia to accept it. Krasner contends that the total is too small and that the payment schedule is too slow. Philadelphia would receive between $5 million and $8 million for 18 years.

In any case, it is crucial that the state government not squander the settlement money, as it has much of the $350 million a year it has received from the 1998 national settlement with the tobacco industry. That money should have gone exclusively for tobacco cessation, addiction treatment, education and other public health initiatives. But politicians have used hundreds of millions of those dollars to fill the budget holes that they created.

The opioid settlement itself requires the money to be used for addiction treatment and other programs to mitigate the crisis. But the state needs a law to ensure that the Legislature uses it to expand anti-opioid efforts rather than to fund existing programs.

— Republican & Herald, Pottsville/TNS