Bipartisan bills that passed the Senate today created a structure to distribute Michigan’s $800 million share of the $26 billion national opioid settlement over the next several years, which is a big benefit to the community’s most vulnerable population.
This will provide welcome relief to thousands in the state, and it is relief that may never have materialized were it not for the extraordinary cooperative efforts exhibited by the leadership of both Wayne and Oakland Counties to attack a devastating problem that is traumatizing both communities as well as much of the rest of the country. As a result, Wayne County will receive an allocated $35 million share of the settlement.
It was on October 12, 2017, when Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans and then Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson announced their plan to join forces in a lawsuit filed against multiple drug manufacturers and distributors alleging the deceptive marketing and sale of opioids. The lawsuit was the first such suit filed in Michigan.
“This is a full-blown health crisis from which the drug companies made billions,” Executive Evans said at the time. “People are dying and lives are being ruined by addiction as this horrible tragedy unfolds. We see the devastation every day in our hospitals, in our jails and at the morgue, and it’s getting worse. There has to be a price to be paid when corporations show such disregard for human life.”
“The opioid industry has taken a page out of big tobacco’s playbook,” added Executive Patterson. “They utilized misleading information, marketing campaigns, and studies to convince the public that their product was safe. They put profits over people and now people are paying the price, some with their lives.”
Since the settlement was approved by the Wayne County Commission on December 16, 2021, Wayne County’s communities have been provided with a broad list of guideline parameters (provided below) on how to allocate their share of the $35 million opioid settlement funds approved for Wayne County. These parameters include:
- Naloxone (or other FDA approved drug) –
- Training and education – Broad ranges of services (treatment, recovery programs, syringe services, infectious disease testing, etc.); Immunity / Good Samaritan Laws
- Increased availability and distribution to community – uninsured or when not covered by insurance.
- Includes Naloxone Plus Strategies – link individual to treatment programs and other available services.
- Public Health entities provide free Naloxone to anyone in the community
- Treatment – Broad category covering Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) and any co-occurring Substance Use Disorder (SUD) / Mental Health (MH) condition.
- Full continuum of care and wrap-around services – housing, transportation, education, job training/placement, childcare, peer support services, counseling, case management, access to medications, residential treatment, community-based services (legal/social), telehealth and mobile intervention services. Trauma related services to individuals and surviving family.
- Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) Programs, including expansion of “warm hand-off” programs.
- Wrap around services – housing, transportation, job training/placement, childcare, co-occurring recovery services (Substance Use Disorders “SUD”/Mental Health “MH”)
- Expanded treatment and services to Pregnant/Postpartum Women and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS).
- Incarcerated Population – Increased funding for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Treatment and support services, including MAT for OUD and co-occurring SUD/MH disorders both during incarceration and afterwards.
- Support pre-arrest and pre-arraignment diversion strategies
- Re-entry programs
- Support treatment and recovery courts that provide evidence-based options
- Training for law enforcement, medical providers
- Provide wellness and support services to first responders and others for secondary trauma related to opioid-related emergency events
- Prevention Programs:
- Media campaigns to prevent opioid misuse, provide education, drug disposal, community supports
- Evidence-based programs in schools
- Medical Provider education and training
- Support use or enhancement of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP) – State
- Community disposal programs
- Funding / Training First Responders – Pre-arrest diversion programs, overdose response teams or other methods to connect at-risk individuals to behavioral health services / support.
- Syringe Service Programs – Access to sterile syringes and linkage to care/treatment services.
- Evidence-based Data collection and Research to analyze effectiveness of abatement strategies.
- Leadership, Planning and Coordination –
- Statewide, regional, local or community regional planning to identify root causes of addiction/overdose, harm reduction goals, high risk areas/population.
- Dashboard – share reports or strategy outcomes, share ideas for spending settlement funds.
- Invest in infrastructure / staffing at government or non-for-profit agencies to support collaborative, cross-system coordination efforts and oversight/management of opioid abatement programs.
- Training and Research – broad categories.