Local governments across the country are receiving money from opioid settlements, but not all of them know how to use it.

Settlement money to help stem the decades-long opioid addiction and overdose epidemic is rolling out to small towns and big cities across the U.S., but advocates worry that chunks of it may be used in ways that don’t make a dent in the crisis.

As state and local governments navigate how to use the money, advocates say local governments may not have the bandwidth to take the right steps to identify their communities’ needs and direct their funding shares to projects that use proven methods to prevent deaths.

Opioids have been linked to about 800,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, including more than 80,000 annually in recent years, with most of those involving illicitly produced fentanyl.

  • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world
    19·
    1 year ago

    The money should have been given to victims and families of victims. Local governments are going to piss it away on things it’s not meant for.

  • UndulyUnruly@lemmy.world
    10·
    1 year ago

    Opioids have been linked to about 800,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, including more than 80,000 annually in recent years, with most of those involving illicitly produced fentanyl.

    Aside from the argument re the appropriate use case to remedy the societal impacts, which are de facto unquantifiable, the ~$44bn settlements the article refers to juxtaposed with deaths caused by opioids equates to a mere $55000 per casualty.

    PEANUTS. The figure is below the US national average income in Q3 2023, i.e $59,384.

    The debt to the victims, survivors and humanity is unpayable.

  • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
    7·
    1 year ago

    It’s all just going to MAT programs, and you guessed it, right back to the pharmaceutical companies… MAT programs don’t work if the goal is to get people off drugs, but of course the goal isn’t to get them off drugs, it’s to get them onto the profitable drugs