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.
Bill Crawford is the author of A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives.
