Early in President Joe Biden’s tenure, his administration promised to play a key role in ensuring opioid settlement funds went toward tackling the nation’s addiction crisis.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden had laid out a plan to appoint an “opioid crisis accountability coordinator” to support states in their lawsuits against companies accused of sparking the overdose epidemic. The following year, the White House convened a meeting about the soon-to-be finalized settlements, noted that the money could support drug policy priorities, and helped create a model law that states could adopt in anticipation of receiving funds.
But today, as billions of dollars actually start to flow and state and local leaders make crucial decisions on how to spend the more than $50 billion windfall to tackle this entrenched public health crisis, the federal government has gone mostly quiet.
No federal employee holds the title of opioid crisis accountability coordinator. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has not released public statements about the settlements in over a year. And the settlement funds are mentioned just twice in a 150-page national strategy to reduce drug trafficking and overdose deaths.
The federal government is not legally obligated to engage in the discussion. After all, states filed the lawsuits against companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers, including Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, and Walmart.
But there is an expectation that the federal government, including the nation’s leading agencies on mental health and addiction, should play a role. Public policy and health experts say a vacuum of federal leadership could lead to serious wasted opportunities and missteps in the use of the billions that will be paid out over nearly two decades — in what could be an unfortunate reprise of the multibillion-dollar 1998 settlement with tobacco companies.
“States get wide eyes when they get these huge pots of money,” said Bill Pierce, who served as spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services in the early 2000s. He was there when states began receiving cash from the tobacco settlement. Soon enough, money “starts to seep …
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Early in President Joe Biden’s tenure, his administration promised to play a key role in ensuring opioid settlement funds went toward tackling the nation’s addiction crisis.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden had laid out a plan to appoint an “opioid crisis accountability coordinator” to support states in their lawsuits against companies accused of sparking the overdose epidemic. The following year, the White House convened a meeting about the soon-to-be finalized settlements, noted that the money could support drug policy priorities, and helped create a model law that states could adopt in anticipation of receiving funds.
But today, as billions of dollars actually start to flow and state and local leaders make crucial decisions on how to spend the more than $50 billion windfall to tackle this entrenched public health crisis, the federal government has gone mostly quiet.
No federal employee holds the title of opioid crisis accountability coordinator. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has not released public statements about the settlements in over a year. And the settlement funds are mentioned just twice in a 150-page national strategy to reduce drug trafficking and overdose deaths.
The federal government is not legally obligated to engage in the discussion. After all, states filed the lawsuits against companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers, including Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, and Walmart.
But there is an expectation that the federal government, including the nation’s leading agencies on mental health and addiction, should play a role. Public policy and health experts say a vacuum of federal leadership could lead to serious wasted opportunities and missteps in the use of the billions that will be paid out over nearly two decades — in what could be an unfortunate reprise of the multibillion-dollar 1998 settlement with tobacco companies.
“States get wide eyes when they get these huge pots of money,” said Bill Pierce, who served as spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services in the early 2000s. He was there when states began receiving cash from the tobacco settlement. Soon enough, money “starts to seep …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]