Over the past two years, as state attorneys general agreed to more than $50 billion in legal settlements with companies that made or sold opioids, they vowed the money would be spent on addiction treatment and prevention. They were determined to avoid the misdirection of the tobacco settlement of the 1990s, in which billions of dollars from cigarette companies went to plug budget gaps instead of funding programs to stop or prevent smoking.
But in at least one California county, history is repeating itself. And across the country, there are concerns about the lack of transparency regarding how this money will be used. Many local leaders are finding themselves in difficult positions: choosing between paying bills due today or investing in the fight against an ongoing crisis.
Mendocino County in rural Northern California has reported the highest rate of overdose deaths in the state. Yet, its board of supervisors decided to use more than $63,000 of opioid settlement funds — about 6.5% of all the settlement cash the county has received in the first two years of distribution— to help fill a general budget shortfall of about $6 million.