A Roadmap for Opioid Settlement Funds: Supporting Communities & Ending the Overdose Crisis
Context: Over the next 18 years, states across the country will receive over $50 billion from settlements with opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. Secured through the suffering of people who use drugs and their loved ones, these funds should be used to help individuals directly impacted by the failed “War on Drugs.” Sadly, in many places, people are not seeing opioid settlement dollars put toward things that would actually improve their lives.
Our collective position: While these funds were secured in response to the dramatic increase in deaths and harms from opioid pill dispensing stemming from corporate greed, they provide an opportunity to more broadly address the damage of over 50 years of drug war policies grounded in criminalization, incarceration and anti-evidenced-based approaches to drug use. These drug war policies have made our nation a global leader in mass incarceration, mass death and mass harms, including the dual pandemics of HIV and hepatitis C, as well as poverty and homelessness. Black and Brown people bear the brunt of the harms of these policies and so a data-driven approach should be used to direct funds toward those disproportionately impacted by deaths, nonfatal overdoses, and individual and community health and social harms. This funding should be spent thoughtfully on things that other funds are not already available for.