The surge of deaths in Mississippi from opioid overdoses that began in the late 1990s continues today driven by synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl. Opioid abatement programs remain a critical need.
The Mississippi Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council met earlier this month to consider over 100 proposals for opioid abatement. Its recommendations will help guide legislative funding. Mississippi Today, which has been tracking settlement payments, reported the meeting “stirs confusion.” Sen. Nicole Boyd, who crafted the bill creating the council, called it “real collaboration” that often looks like “sausage-making.” Since 2022 the state has been collecting payments Attorney General Lynn Fitch negotiated as part of a nationwide settlement with 11 manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies. The payments, expected to total $421 million by 2040, are split 70% for opioid abatement initiatives, 15% for local government initiatives, and 15% for state initiatives. The 15% for 147 local government entities – 77 counties and 70 municipalities – is being sent directly to them. The 37-member council, 15 voting members and 22 nonvoting, chaired by the Attorney General, will recommend how to spend the 70% set aside for opioid abatement, about $300 million. State and local governments may spend the other 30%, about $121 million, as they wish.
In delineating “abatement”, the national settlement lists nine core strategies – five for “treatment” with 19 subsets and four for “prevention” with six subsets. It then lists eight approved use categories with 95 subsets. Organizations and governments were invited to submit proposals. As might be expected, they ranged all over the listed categories. Eight council subcommittees reviewed and scored the proposals, segregating them into five tiers. At its November 3rd meeting the council determined to consider in December only the 59 programs that scored in the top two tiers. The highest scores went to projects that would expand clinical treatment capacity, increase housing for people in recovery and support peer-specialist training and prevention work in communities, according to MPB. Mississippi Today has written critically about the use of settlement funds from local government spending their direct allocations to General Fitch allowing 30% of the settlement to be spent on non-abatement initiatives to concerns about conflicts of interest on the council. Sen. Boyd, a non-voting member expressed confidence in the process. “I am happy with the council’s work to date,” she said. “The good news is that the process is public, the minutes are public, the meetings are open, and the voices at the table are experienced and committed.” She believes the council’s scoring criteria and evaluation process is prioritizing evidence-based strategies for opioid abatement. (An email request for comment to Fitch’s chief-of-staff Michelle Williams went unanswered.) “Do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” – Galatians 5:1. Crawford is an author and syndicated columnist from Jackson.
12 comments:
The users NOT the state should get the money
Legalize drugs and let grown adults make up there own mind to use drugs or not!
@12:12- an absolutely stupid idea (maybe you ought to be writing for Mississippi Today, who wants to critize how this is being done regardless of what the settlement requires.) The users were not competent to manage their own affairs, thus causing this problem; what makes you think that their getting a bunch of cash in their pockets would lead them to do anything good with it. Or looked at another way, because of their addiction, they get rewarded with a bunch of cash! Hell, that might make 12:13's reply just as great a concept, then the users would have more money to act like grown adults and stay addicted.
The purpose of the settlement was to help treat the users - something the government has been having to deal with because of their use; not to reward them for their ineptitude.
On another note, going to be interesting to see how the JJ readers that have a built--in hate for Crawford are going to attack this column - one that does little but report on and give an update on an item that should be of interest to folks but has had little exposure. Frankly, a good column, and except for one section trying to explain where MT stands on this that has something grammatically wrong, very helpful in understanding how this several hundred million dollars will be used.
This may be a little off topic for opioids. But young Mexicans are rising up outside the presidential palace. Something you won’t see is that they are chanting “puta judica” against Sheinbaum not because they are antisemitic but because she and her cabinet are all in bed with the narcos. A Mexican senator recently released a viral videos where she was naming and shaming all of the deputy ministers openly standing with their narco “handlers” (sounds like AIPAC) on the floor of the Cámara de Diputados or the lower parliamentary house in Mexico.
Drug Money and government power are too entangled here too.
Are the prescription writers immune from the consequences of their negligence in the same category as the judicial system that releases dangerous offenders to commit more heinous crimes upon release?
12:13, Since you re-posted your comment from two days ago on the drug-trafficking football coach story, I'll re-post my response:
And if those adult choices create a strong propensity to burglarize the homes, vehicles, and businesses of others?
Should the victims of those crimes then be free to use deadly force to protect their property?
Is that what libertarian utopia looks like?
Pardon me for drawing the comparison, but sounds like a Baptist collection plate, full of Benjamins, sitting unattended on the back table as the faithful file out...a power failure darkening the sanctuary.
WTF could go wrong here?
12:12, As I understand it, the theory of liability was to compensate the state for it's losses to society from narcotic-addicted residents, and to do whatever it can to remediate the damages.
This was not a personal injury case, bought on behalf of the individual addicts. A case like that would be just about impossible, without a near-perfect plaintiff.
Come again? Err, What?
The bottom line: follow the money.
How much did the outside attorneys hired to represent these entities recover?
In my experience, windfalls like this are usually pi$$ed away by the government
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