LANSING, Mich. — Michigan will receive nearly $800 million from an opioid addiction settlement with three major drug distributors as well as Johnson & Johnson. About half of that money is earmarked for local governments and it's expected to go towards treatment, prevention and proven tactics to help people kick their addiction.
“This historic national agreement marks the culmination of three years of negotiations to resolve more than 4,000 claims state and local government across the country," said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. "It’s the second largest multi-state agreement in United States history."
The settlement, which totals $26 billion, includes distributors Cardinal, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Johnson & Johnson.
“Michigan’s settlement totals approximately $776 million and will be divided with half of the total dollars paid directly to eligible municipalities, and the other half will be paid to the state," Nessel said.
Opioid related overdoses were responsible for 1,768 deaths in Michigan in 2019. That number jumped to over 2,000 in 2020.
Experts and local government leaders say they're very pleased to see the funding, although just how much will trickle down to Lansing is still unclear.
“It's just good news. You know, there's some justice done to try to remedy this. This problem isn't new," said Patrick Patterson the executive director of Mid-Michigan Recovery Services, which focuses special attention on treatment of low income people in the Lansing area.
“What I am paying attention to in what we do, is this warm hand off thing," he said, referring to constant care throughout the recovery process. "The thing that we can't forget that is a real challenge in the opioid crisis is the continuity of care required. So from detox usually to residential treatment and into recovery housing, it's all got to be warm hand off.”
True hands-on care is expensive, he explained.
“It is very difficult at the funding level of current programs to keep the very tight attention that we need to prevent death," he said.
Patterson wants to see money used to restore services that were cut in recent years, make treatment programs that can be billed through Medicaid more accessible and establish more recovery clinics.
Lansing Mayor Andy Schor is in agreement.
“Whether it's treatment, prevention, life saving, we're going to look at all of those avenues at the city and push dollars into all of those to make sure that that we can be there ready to help people when they overdose," he said. "Help to treat people as they need it, especially when they're voluntarily trying to get themselves clean and to help prevent from someone going down that road of getting addicted to any of these drugs.”
Money should start flowing out to local governments in the second or third quarter of this year.
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