At least 20 states have rejected a tentative multibillion-dollar settlement with the OxyContin maker, Purdue Pharma, that would go toward helping with the costs of the opioids crisis, with one attorney general accusing the drugmaker of choosing to “pour gasoline” on the fire it had started.

While 27 attorneys general said they had “agreed to a framework to resolve claims against Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family”, the deal was condemned by many others, including the Connecticut attorney general, William Tong; the anti-Sackler campaigner and artist Nan Goldin; and the addiction specialist Dr Andrew Kolodny.

Tong told the Guardian that Connecticut had rejected the settlement because “the scope and scale of the pain, death and destruction that Purdue and the Sacklers have caused far exceeds anything that has been offered thus far”.

He said the state was committed “to holding Purdue and the Sacklers accountable for the crisis they have caused”.

Tong’s comments followed an earlier interview with National Public Radio (NPR) in which he demanded that the Connecticut-headquartered Purdue be broken up and its assets liquidated to help pay costs related to the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans who became addicted to the powerful painkillers.

“Connecticut demands that the Sacklers and Purdue management be forced completely out of the opioid business, domestically and internationally, and that they never be allowed to return.”

Tong, interviewed on PBS News Hour, said: “Purdue and the Sacklers have to get out of the opioid business completely. They have to be shut down completely.”

Tong accused the Sacklers, who are valued at around $13bn, and Purdue of failing “to take an opportunity to make this right and to begin to meet their obligation to fund vital investments in addiction science, treatment, and prevention, because they started this fire, and they poured gasoline on it”.

Some activists and campaigners have attacked the deal, too, saying it lets the drug maker and its billionaire owners off far too lightly.

Under the terms of the deal, the Sackler family would give up control of Purdue, which would then declare bankruptcy and be converted into a trust that would direct profits from sales of OxyContin and other, as-yet undeveloped, anti-addiction drugs to meet the terms of the settlement.

Plaintiffs in the case, including more than 45 states and territories and nearly 2,300 cities and counties, are estimated to receive between $10bn to $12bn.

The Sacklers have rejected accusations that they bear some responsibility for the crisis.



“While plaintiffs’ court filings have created an erroneous picture and resulted in unwarranted criticism, we remain committed to playing a substantive role in addressing this complex public health crisis. Our hearts go out to those affected by drug abuse or addiction,” a family spokesman said this year.

But Tong’s sentiments were echoed by others who contend Purdue used deceptive marketing practices to push its opioid drugs despite having evidence they were contributing to the addiction crisis.

Other attorneys general who opposed the deal said the Sacklers needed to guarantee more money. “We believe they created a mess and must help to clear it up,” said North Carolina’s Josh Stein. “I am now preparing filings to sue the Sackler family.”

Nan Goldin, the New York art photographer who is heading Pain, a public nuisance campaign to shame the Sackler family into accepting responsibility for the crisis through its aggressive marketing of OxyContin, called the settlement a “hoax”.

“It’s a hypothetical settlement based on drugs that are to be developed, companies that will be sold, and on sales of OxyContin. The Sacklers want to benefit from the sales of the same high-dosage narcotic they flooded the market with to pay off the results of what they did.

“This is the height of cynicism,” she added.

Goldin also accused the Sacklers of failing to put up any substantial amount of their fortune.

“The Sacklers are putting up money from the sale of Mundipharma but they’re not putting any of their own money in.”

As she was heading to stage a protest at Purdue headquarters, Goldin told the Guardian she would support the attorneys general holding out against the settlement and “dedicated to calling out the Sacklers by name and actually pressing charges on them personally”.

“The most important thing is that the Sacklers take responsibility for their culpability and make personal restitution,” Goldin said. “When you break this down, it’s a hoax and they’re making it into a huge PR effort to benefit their standing.”

Dr Andrew Kolodny, a longtime critic of opioid prescribing who recently testified as a star witness for Oklahoma in an opioid negligence lawsuit that ended in a $572m judgment against Johnson & Johnson, said the proposed settlement would have left Purdue Pharma profiting from future sales of the drug.

“It’s bad because states will be put in the position of profiting off the future sales of Purdue products and that should be a non-starter. They should not be paid back for the opioid crisis from the sale of opioids. It’s inappropriate. No deal is better than a bad deal.”