The recent federal budget signed into law by President Donald Trump last week cuts more than a billion dollars from federal addiction and mental health services, forcing Maryland officials to consider tough options about the future of opioid settlement funds.
Members of the Maryland Opioid Restitution Fund Advisory Council, which makes recommendations on how the state should spend hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement money from drug companies, are warning against using some of the funds to supplant federal downsizing.
“I think the responsibility and the burden is going to fall heavily on the locals in the state,” Marcus Webster, a member of the council said. “We need to be really intentional with recommendations and funding decisions that we make, especially over the next two years.”
While considering using the funds to supplant previously funded federal services is just an idea, it’s one that is contentious in the community.
The settlement funds were won by Maryland in a global settlement against Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Maryland lawmakers set up the fund for the purpose of reducing overdoses and preventing addiction, however, made legal exceptions in previous years to use the money to supplant shortfalls with more basic addiction services.
Opioid recovery advocates and members of the council stated that they’d much rather see the funds further the development of harm reduction measures and services rather than backfill funding that was lost in the budget bill.
Maryland is set to receive about $250 million over the next 15 years from the settlements, about 70% of that will go to localities.
The Maryland Office of Overdose Response recently released a handful of recommendations for state localities for how they can best spend opioid settlement money to prevent, treat and help people recover from substance use disorder.
The suggestions focus on five areas: Public safety, recovery, treatment, harm reduction and prevention.
They include concepts like supporting programs that focus on families dealing with substance use, expanding street-based outreach, increasing naloxone distribution, expanding access to recovery centers and promoting alternatives to incarceration for drug-related offenses.
“We want to make sure that all Marylanders have access to Naloxone, which is our number one tool for reversing an overdose,” said Emily Keller, Maryland’s special secretary of opioid response. “It's absolutely the number one life saving tool, and I think something that Maryland has really thrived at.”
