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People with substance use disorder across the country are not getting a formal say in how most of the approximately $50 billion in opioid lawsuit settlement money is being used to stem the crisis, a new analysis found. Some advocates say that is one factor in why portions of the money are going to efforts they don't consider to be proven ways to save lives from overdose, including equipment to scan jail inmates for contraband, drug-sniffing police dogs and systems to neutralize unneeded prescription medications. In Jackson County, West Virginia, officials voted earlier this year to use more than $500,000 in settlement funds for a first-responder training center and a shooting range.
They also allocated $35,000 to a quick response team that works with overdose survivors. Josh George, who has been in recovery for three years after 23 years of drug use, primarily heroin, runs a recovery group with his wife and other family members. People are also reading.
.. Some of the money could have gone to the county's only recovery house, he said.
"All these people were doing it on their own dime," George said, "trying to help these people." Over the past eight years, drugmakers, wholesalers, pharmacy chains and other companies have agreed to settlements to resolve thousands of lawsuits filed by state, local and Native American tribal governments claiming the companies' practices contributed to the crisis. Opioids have been a major problem in the U.
S. since the late 1990s, with the deadliest stretch earlier this decade reaching more than 80,000 annually. The major causes have shifted from prescription pills to heroin to fentanyl and other lab-produced substances often added to other illicit drugs.
Funds from the multibillion-dollar nationwide settlements began rolling out in 2022 and will continue until at least 2038. The agreements require most of the money to be used to fight the crisis but offer great flexibility in how to do it. Christine Minhee of Opioid Settlement Tracker and Vital Strategies, a public health organization, released a state-by-state guide on Monday outlining how government funding decisions are being made.
The guide aims to help advocates know where to raise their voices. Using that information and other data, Minhee, who has tallied just under $50 billion in settlements excluding one with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that the Supreme Court rejected, found advisory groups help determine spending of about half of it. But they have decision-making authority over less than onefifth of it.
Less than $1 in $7 is overseen by boards that reserve at least one seat for someone who is using or has used drugs, though some places where it's not required may have such members anyway. Brandon Marshall, a professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health and a former member of the Rhode Island Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, said he has observed that processes involving experts and people with drug use experience have made quick allocations to groups working on harm reduction and other areas because they know the groups. "It's not just a way to ensure that the funds are used effectively," he said.
"Those kinds of systems are also ensuring the funds are getting out the door faster." Public health advocates say the money should be used in ways proven to save lives, prevent drug use and focus on racial equity and that the decisions should be transparent. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
