The St. Mary’s County Board of County Commissioners voted to authorize the county’s participation in a proposed opioid settlement with Indivior, the maker of the addiction-treatment drug Suboxone, as part of the consent agenda at its Sept. 15 meeting.
The action allows St. Mary’s County to join a multistate settlement in which Indivior agreed to pay $86 million over five years to resolve allegations that the company failed to properly monitor suspicious opioid orders and targeted “dangerous prescribers,” including operators of pill mills, with its promotional efforts. States including New York, Illinois, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia led the negotiations, which built on a separate $600 million federal settlement Indivior reached in 2020 over similar claims.
Under Maryland’s opioid settlement framework, funds from agreements like this one flow through the state’s Opioid Restitution Fund, administered by the Maryland Office of Overdose Response, which distributes money to local health departments, correctional facilities and community organizations through block and competitive grants. The statewide fund held a balance of $100.6 million at the close of fiscal 2025, with roughly $282 million more in settlement revenue expected through 2038.
The vote is the latest in a series of opioid-related settlement actions St. Mary’s County has taken. In April, commissioners authorized the county to enter a settlement agreement with the six remaining defendants in its opioid litigation. In 2023, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties shared in a $24 million statewide opioid settlement, and county commissioners separately approved $10 million in opioid settlement funds along with an additional $5 million for school-based initiatives.
County officials have not yet said how St. Mary’s expects to allocate its share of the Indivior settlement funds.
