Drug Settlements Could Help Expand Opioid Addiction Programs

Harm reduction vending machine. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County will expand a handful of projects and services aimed at taking on the opioid epidemic.

County officials are seeking additional funding for Narcan distribution and residential treatment services among others. The funding would come from a settlement the county secured through lawsuits brought against producers and distributors of opioid narcotics like Oxycontin.

Over the next 18 years, Milwaukee County will receive approximately $102 million in settlement payments from the drug makers and distributors. The multi-jurisdictional lawsuits, to which the county was a party, will bring approximately $721 million into the state of Wisconsin for programs aimed at addressing the opioid epidemic.

In 2022, the Milwaukee County Board approved 15 projects that would be funded with the settlement funds. Now, officials are looking to expand some of these projects.

Notably, officials are seeking approximately $500,000 to expand Narcan purchases for use in vending machines that distribute, free of charge, the life-saving medications. Narcan reverses the effects of opioids and can save someone in an active overdose from dying. This funding would increase the county’s Narcan supply by approximately 1o-times, said Heather Wolfgram, a project manager in the Office of Strategy, Budget and Performance.

There is also a grant program that was approved. It created a competitive grant process to provide funding to existing organizations to expand residential treatment. County officials found that the original $175,000 grants weren’t quite enough and are now seeking an additional $750,000 to boost the individual grant amounts to $300,000, said Jennifer Alfredson, a senior grants analyst in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Another project would increase “re-granting funds” by approximately $3.4 million to $4.8 million. “Re-granting” allows organizations to receive funding from the county, then grant that funding to other organizations that “may not otherwise have contractual relationships with Milwaukee County, but have important relationships in the community that will yield effective prevention and treatment delivery strategies,” Wolfgram said.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner‘s Office is also seeking approximately $385,000 to expand funding for contracted forensic pathologists. The new total for the limited-term positions would be approximately $2.3 million.

The board’s Committee on Finance unanimously endorsed the projects’ additional funding on Sept. 14 and the full county board approved the funding a week later.

The funding from opioid-related settlements is unlikely to cap out at the $102 million the county has already secured. The county is anticipating a settlement with Endo International PLC, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and it remains involved in two other lawsuits: one against the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, and another against the global consulting firm that advised Purdue, McKinsey & Company.