NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors have allocated $100,000 in opioid funds for courts dealing with drug-related cases.
The county received the money as part of a nationwide multibillion-dollar settlement being paid by pharmaceutical companies and distributors blamed for addicting people to pain-killing drugs.
Meeting Monday, the Board of Supervisors agreed to earmark $50,000 for the Adams County Drug Court and another $50,000 for the Adams County Youth Court. The county has a total of about $160,000 in opioid funds, said board President Kevin Wilson.
The appropriation comes after the news outlet Mississippi Today reported last month that many local governments throughout the state have been spending their shares of opioid-settlement funds on routine expenses rather than addressing addiction.
About $26 billion is being made available in the coming years to more than 3,000 state and local governments throughout the United States to reimburse them for tax dollars spent dealing with the opioid epidemic.
Drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, along with manufacturer Janssen Pharmaceuticals and its parent company Johnson & Johnson, agreed in 2021 to pay the money to resolve lawsuits filed against them by states’ attorneys general.
“These agreements resolve legal claims against those companies stemming from actions that fueled the opioid addiction epidemic in return for their payment of $26 billion and commitment to make major changes in how they do business to improve safety and oversight over the distribution of prescription opioid,” states a report posted by the National Association of Attorneys General.
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