Arkansas Week: Opioid lawsuits, distributing settlement funds
BY: Arkansas PBS | Aired July 31, 2024 | Original Episode
Opioid addiction continues taking a toll, especially the powerful synthetic fentanyl. Efforts to combat the problem on the state and federal level are ongoing. Prosecutors are targeting more low level dealers who are directly implicated in overdose deaths. And a year after the state began distributing funds from a national opioid settlement with pharmaceutical companies, officials are evaluating the effectiveness of programs that money was used for.
After being asked how the opioid settlement dollars are being used, Director Lane explains that a person would submit an application and then the advisory board would go through those proposals to try to vet them. We want to make sure we weren’t duplicating what the state is already doing, and see if there are other programs in place are already doing those things. We want to make sure that we’re using money wisely and then go through our process of approvals through the executive directors of the Municipal League and the Association of Counties.
