Jan. 16—bluefield — A second opioid lawsuit payment that arrived in Mercer County by air Wednesday was among other payments going to Raleigh County and southern West Virginia counties and cities to help them deal with the damage inflicted by opioid addictions and overdose deaths.
Attorney H. Truman Chafin, a former state senator who represented Mercer County and served as Senate Leader in the Legislature, landed at the Mercer County Airport and presented a check for $678,148 to Mercer County Commission President Bill Archer and County Commissioner Brian Blankenship. Chafin is now with The Chafin Law Firm in Williamson.
It was Mercer County’s second payment resulting from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors that sold large amounts of opioid pain medications in West Virginia. In December 2023, Chafin came to the airport and presented a check for nearly $2 million.
“Today is a pretty good check, too,” Chafin said Wednesday after his plane landed. “It’s $678,148 for you. You all know what to do with it.”
Chafin said that 72.5% of Mercer County’s settlement proceeds, along with money from other counties and cities, went to the West Virginia First Foundation as per the memorandum of understanding that created the foundation. Mercer County and the other recipients will be able to apply for more funding from the foundation.
The West Virginia First Foundation was created with legislation set up by former Gov. Jim Justice to administer the 72.5% of almost every county’s share of the opioid settlement funds, Chafin said. Six different regions across the state are made up of counties and cities working together to use the settlement funds.
“And that’s a lot of money,” he said. “Now, this (Wednesday’s payment) is just a pittance compared to the 72%, and Mercer is in the Region 6 with Fayette, Monroe, Raleigh, Mercer, Summers, Nicholas, Webster, Greenbrier, Pocahontas, Wyoming and McDowell. And per the MOU (memorandum of understanding) the foundation shall spend 20% of their annual budget in this region, so I’m urging you all to make sure that you have the right people to hook up with the other counties and whatever you’re going to do, that’s a huge amount of millions there to be used in Mercer County to try and help what we’re trying to help.”
“You’ve all got a lot of millions that you need to be applying for, but make sure you have somebody that knows what you’re going to build in this region out of all those millions,” Chafin said.
County Commission President Bill Archer said he remembered how the opioid epidemic impacted Mercer County and the rest of the region.
“We experienced, at least I experienced, like down in Oceana, that was like the oxy (oxycodone) center of the universe for a period of time,” he said. “All those pill mills we’d see along (Route) 52 going down into McDowell County. We had lines of them. It was a terrible thing. Those kind of things were just so horrible.”
Chafin, who once represented Mingo County in the Legislature, recalled the community of Kermit, a place with 500 to 600 people that saw a huge shipment of opioid pills shipped to it.
“I got a call from some people and they said ‘You know where Kermit is?'” Chafin said. “And I said ‘Yes, sir, I certainly do. I’m the senator here.’ They said they have distributed almost five million pills in Kermit and there are like 490 people or something. And it was absolutely ground zero and it was national news and that’s how we got on the case.”
And this huge amount of opioids, which led to overdose deaths and prison sentences, have an impact that’s still being felt today.
“There are so many people who aren’t here today. Grandmothers are raising grandchildren because their parents are gone,” Chafin said.
In the second round of opioid settlement payments, Bluefield will be receiving $318,313 and Princeton will receive $196,187.
Raleigh County will receive $1,278,921 and Beckley will receive $860,810. Fayette County will receive $379,162 and McDowell County will receive $740,135 with the county seat, Welch, receiving $27,604, according to public records at The Chafin Law Firm. How much each recipient is awarded is based on factors such as population.
Contact Greg Jordan at
gjordan@bdtonline.com
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com