The marketing pitches are bold: Invest opioid settlement dollars in a lasso-like device to help police detain people without Tasers or pepper spray. Pour money into psychedelics, electrical stimulation devices and other experimental treatments for addiction. Fund research into new, supposedly abuse-deterrent opioids and splurge on expensive, brand-name naloxone. These pitches land daily in the inboxes of state and local officials in charge of distributing more than $50 billion from settlements in opioid lawsuits, according to KFF Health News. The money is coming from an array of companies that made, sold or distributed prescription painkillers, including Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen and Walgreens. Thousands of state and local governments sued the companies for aggressively promoting and distributing opioid medications, fueling an epidemic that progressed to heroin and fentanyl and has killed more than half a million Americans. The settlement money, arriving over nearly two decades, is meant to remediate the effects of that corporate behavior.
However, with the arrival of more than $4.3 billion as of early November, private, public, nonprofit and for-profit entities are eyeing the funds. Some people fear that corporations, in particular, with their flashy products, robust marketing budgets and hunger for profits will do more harm than good. However, the addiction crisis is too large for the public sector to tame alone, and many stakeholders agree that partnering with industry is crucial. After all, pharmaceutical companies manufacture medications to treat opioid addiction. Corporations run treatment facilities and telehealth services. “It’s unrealistic and even harmful to say we don’t want any money going to any private companies,” said Kristen Pendergrass of Shatterproof, a national nonprofit focused on addiction. The key, agree public health and policy experts, is to evaluate products or services to see if they are necessary, evidence-based and sustainable, instead of flocking to companies with the best marketing. Otherwise, “you end up with lots of shiny objects,” said JK Costello of the Steadman Group, a firm that paid to help local governments administer the settlements in Colorado, Kansas, Oregon and Virginia.
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