Some WV counties paying jail debt with opioid funds, citing budget strains

Some WV counties paying jail debt with opioid funds, citing budget strains

West Virginia will receive an estimated $980 million over the next 17 years from a global settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by states, counties and cities across the country against opioid distributors, manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and others, in the wake of the country’s opioid epidemic. At least nine counties are using some of that funding to cover jail debt, and while county representatives say spending the funds this wa…