As more than 9,000 inhabitants of Mississippi have died from drug overdoses since 2000, both lawyers and lawmakers have sought a way to distribute the hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations that were progenitors of the crisis. But those closest to the disaster worry the setup could allow the spending of those dollars to do anything but end the overdose epidemic.
Mississippi stands to obtain a substantial fund of $370 million stemming from settlements with pharmaceutical manufacturers. These titans of industry raked in profits while their products facilitated the ongoing opioid crisis.
That payout is set to be divided across factions: state and local governments. A notional 85% of that money (some $315 million) is under the control of the state Legislature. For some time now, the manner in which the state would apportion its still-notional share was unknown.
Earlier this year, state senators and representatives took significant steps toward addressing these issues. They passed, nearly unanimously, Senate Bill 2767. This law does not, however, detail any distribution of the funds, though instead, provides a framework, a kind of general outline, for how about $259 million of the funds will be distributed. A 15-person advisory council, composed of representatives for state government agencies, elected officials, and law enforcement is to develop a process by which organizations can apply for grants to address the opioid addiction crisis.
The remaining $56 million that the state lawmakers control can be spent on anything, whether directly or indirectly related to solving the addiction problem. Senator Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and the bill’s lead sponsor, said she and other senators borrowed some ideas from nearby states in working out how the funds could best prevent more victims from the opioid crisis.
“It involves everything, from child welfare services to the judicial system to medical care to mental health services,” she said. “It is a crisis that has affected every aspect of society, and we needed a comprehensive group of people making those recommendations.”
Dr. Caleb Alexander—an expert in epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health—appeared in the role of plaintiffs' expert witness in some of the lawsuits against the manufacturers and distributors of opioids. His testimony identified and addressed the public health threat posed by improperly prescribed and misused opioids. Alexander's work has also involved assisting various cities and counties in the formulation of settlement use plans; those plans are intended to reduce the adverse public health impact caused by improperly prescribed and misused opioids.
He suggested that employing funds across a range of preventive, therapeutic, and restorative strategies—rather than investing in a single, large-scale initiative—would probably save more lives and prevent more people from becoming addicted to drugs. His preferred setup for this kind of work would be to have an apolitical team of addiction experts, rather than the Legislature, make most of the decisions.
He said: “I would have some concerns that it may gum things up”.
Similarly, Alexander stated that the 2025 bill's provisions that establish mechanisms to prevent funds from being used to tackle the opioid epidemic are "a shame." Although he acknowledged that under the terms of the settlement agreements, 70% of the funds are required to be spent on initiatives directly addressing addiction, he asserted that there is nothing that precludes states from using the remaining 30% for the same purpose. Most states are utilizing the funds for that purpose. He stated that the settlements encompass an extensive array of purposes that tackle the epidemic, going so far as to even train first responders. And when it comes to the widespread research and development of medications to combat the epidemic, he sees no reason to funnel any of those settlement dollars to other, less relevant purposes.
“The costs of abatement far outweigh the available funds for every city or county that I’ve examined,” he said.
As hundreds of Mississippians continue to die from opioid overdoses each year, the state government has to move rapidly and responsibly to make the given funds available.
https://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2025/dt/SB/2700-2799/SB2767SG.pdf
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