Tong commits $300M from settlement for opioid fight
Says $300M will go toward drug treatment, prevention
Attorney General William Tong doubles down on his pledge to direct Connecticut’s portion of the funds from a $26 billion national opioid settlement.
Attorney General William Tong doubled down on his pledge to direct Connecticut’s portion of the funds from a $26 billion settlement with the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson toward mitigating the opioid epidemic in a letter to lawmakers Tuesday.
“From the very beginning, state Attorneys General have adhered to an overarching principle — that the money we recover from wrongdoers must be directed to “abatement,” i.e., strategies, initiatives and programs that help our states, victims and their families confront and overcome the crisis in opioid abuse and addiction,” Tong wrote in the letter, responding to concerns from Republican state senate leaders about how the funds would be protected and allocated. “To me, this means that we should direct money to treatment, prevention and addiction science.”
Ensuring that the funds are directed toward opioid use disorder treatment, prevention and recovery has been a point of concern since the settlement was announced last month. A number of advocates and politicians have urged against the funds being deposited into the state’s general fund, as has been the case for the millions of dollars Connecticut receives each year through the 1998 Big Tobacco settlement, which was intended to be used for smoking prevention and cessation.
Through the settlement, Connecticut expects to receive $300 million over the next 18 years, including roughly $26 million each year for the first three years, followed by slightly varied sums over the next fifteen years. The settlement resolves thousands of lawsuits brought against pharmaceutical distributors Mckesson Corp., Cardinal Health and Amerisourcebergen, as well as Johnson & Johnson.
In his letter Tuesday, Tong responded to questions raised in a July 22 letter from Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly, Senate Republican Leader Pro Tempore Paul Formica and Deputy Senate Republican Leaders Tony Hwang and Heather Somers about how the funds will be allocated and protected.
“We must not repeat the infamous misuse of the state’s tobacco settlement funds,” the Republican leaders wrote. “In Connecticut, funds promised to curb smoking have far too often been relied upon as a budgetary escape hatch. We must learn from the past and do better because people’s lives are in the balance.”
Tong responded that he “strongly” agrees with the lawmakers that “this is a rare and critical opportunity to expand our work together to end this urgent public health crisis in our state and across the country.”
Of Connecticut’s $300 million
settlement funds, 85% will be distributed to the state and 15% to municipalities that sign onto the settlement agreements, according to Tong. The settlement agreement also covers attorney’s fees related to the opioid litigation.
Advocates and medical experts have called for the distribution of the funds to prioritize harm-reduction approaches to address an epidemic that last year claimed nearly 1,400 lives in Connecticut and 93,000 lives nationally.
The abatement stipulation covers a wide range of “opioid remediation” care and treatment programs, including funding the overdose-reversing medication naloxone, medication-assisted treatment, expansion of warm handoff programs (which aim to divert individuals away from the criminal justice system and toward treatment), as well as prevention programs, education, training and research, according to Tong.
As Tong noted, “the final decision on the actual appropriations is ultimately up to the legislature and Gov. Lamont, with input from the public and key stakeholders.”
The settlement requires the state to create an Opioid Recovery & Remediation Fund Advisory Council to solicit public input and make recommendations about the use of the funds, which will in turn be distributed by the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.