OpioidSettlementTracker.com and Vital Strategies to hold press briefing on Thursday, December 12th at 12pm ET
December 9, 2024 (U.S.) Today, public health organization Vital Strategies and Christine Minhee, founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com, announced a major update and expansion of their groundbreaking guides on opioid settlement funds for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The guides were created to help community voices mobilize and become involved in the decision-making processes that will determine how settlement funds are spent by each state.
Community participation is important as ever. Overdose deaths are declining nationally for the first time in a decade, as public health resources become accessible to more people. But these data mask significant and persistent disparities between groups, as deaths continue to climb especially among Black and Indigenous people, and persist at high levels in some parts of the country, while declining considerably in others.
Each of the guides published today provides a comprehensive overview of the respective state’s opioid settlement planning and allocation processes, and offers pathways for community members to engage and advocate for uses of the funds. Community participation – especially by those disproportionately affected by the overdose crisis – is necessary to promote spending that is equitable and responsive to the experienced needs of communities.
Guides for all 50 states and the District of Columbia can be found at opioidsettlementguides.com. Opioid settlement funds provide a critical opportunity for strengthening investments in a health-based approach to counter the continuing national overdose crisis. But state and local governments vary widely in their efforts to guide spending on evidence-based approaches, and to meaningfully include directly impacted communities in the process.
“Vital Strategies and I have intentionally designed this resource to equip those most invested in opioid settlement funds with everything they’d need to know to start immediately engaging with their home jurisdiction’s spending processes,” said Christine Minhee, founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com. “States and localities are a few years into spending their settlement funds, which will be paid out to them over 18 years. Our guides are a critical resource for community advocates who are running the marathon race to end the war on drugs, all while sprinting every day to save lives.”
Media are invited to join a zoom call on Thursday, December 12th at 12pm ET with leading experts and advocates on the opioid settlements to learn about the resource, including how it can be used by advocates, journalists, policymakers, and elected officials. To join this call, please register here. Speakers include:
- Christine Minhee, JD, Founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com
- Kate Boulton, JD, MPH, Senior Legal Technical Advisor for the Vital Strategies Overdose Prevention Program
- Tracie Gardner, Executive Director of the National Black Harm Reduction Network
- Amanda Hall, MSW, Senior Director of National Campaigns at Dream.Org
Developed with the explicit goal of empowering communities, the guides available at opioidsettlementguides.com can also serve the journalists, policymakers, and other members of the public who seek reliable information on how opioid settlement funds are governed and allocated in their state. Each state-specific guide answers key questions for each share of a state’s settlement funds:
- Where exactly do my state’s opioid settlement funds live?
- Who ultimately decides how my state’s opioid settlement funds are spent: advisory council members, state legislatures, health departments, or local government officials?
- What must my state’s opioid settlements be spent on, and what processes must be followed as they are spent?
- Has my state established an opioid settlement advisory body? And is that body required to include member(s) with lived and/or living experience?
- Can I provide input on spending? Are my state’s decisionmakers required to hear the public’s input on opioid settlement spend?
- Are any of my state’s opioid settlements at risk of being used to supplant existing health resources?
- Where should I go for updates, and what are key opioid settlement spending resources I should know about in my state?
“This resource is intended to promote community participation and empowerment, which we know are essential for accountable decision-making by states and localities on opioid settlement spending,” said Kate Boulton, Senior Legal Technical Advisor at Vital Strategies. “We are committed to communities having all the information they need to effectively challenge the use of settlement funds on continued investment in failed policies that are based on punishment rather than public health. The voices and leadership of people disproportionately harmed by the overdose crisis are fundamental to ensuring that these monies are spent to save lives.”
About OpioidSettlementTracker.com
OpioidSettlementTracker.com is a legal watchdog project founded by Christine Minhee, J.D. Christine has been tracking states’ opioid settlements and spending plans since 2019 to discover whether funds from the opioid litigation will indeed be spent to bolster the public health response to drug use. She uses data to assist governments and select non-profit organizations better understand the opioid settlement landscape and specifically advocates for harm reduction uses of funds. She is a Dean’s Medal winner from UW Law, holds a B.A. from Stanford University, and is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s Publishing Course.
About Vital Strategies
Vital Strategies is a global health organization that believes every person should be protected by a strong public health system. Our overdose prevention program works to strengthen and scale evidence-based, data-driven policies and interventions to create equitable and sustainable reductions in overdose deaths. Work across seven U.S. States is supported by funding from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Overdose Prevention Initiative, launched in 2018, and by targeted investments from other partners.
Learn more at https://www.vitalstrategies.org/programs/overdose-prevention/
From the Associated Press: How should the opioid settlements be spent? Those hit hardest often don’t have a say, by Geoff Mulvihill.