BOSTON — Massachusetts has banked hundreds of millions of dollars from multi-state settlements with drug manufacturers and distributors over their alleged role in fueling the nation’s deadly opioid crisis.
The Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund, created by the state Legislature in 2020, has received more than $219 million from settlements to date, including nearly $40 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to newly released data from the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
The agency said it spent more than $62.7 million in the previous fiscal year on a range of prevention and treatment services aimed at blunting the effect of opioid addiction. The spending was approved by the 21-member Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund Advisory Council.
In a letter to legislative leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kiame Mahaniah said spending from the fund in the previous fiscal year focused on addressing “racial and geographic disparities and ensure equitable distribution across the care continuum of the opioid use disorder lifespan.”
That included $21.6 million on expansion of drug treatment programs, “harm reduction” services such as bulk purchases of the overdose reversing drug naloxone and fentanyl test strips that addicts use to test the potency of their drugs.
Another $7.2 million in funding for approved for housing and “other basic needs support, including access to technology and transportation” for “high-risk populations in historically underserved communities.”
The council also approved $2.5 million in expenditures from the fund for “family supports” including statewide peer grief groups for individuals and families who have lost loved ones to opioid addiction.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into the state from multistate settlements with opioid makers and distributors, including $108 million from a $7.4 billion deal with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.
Over the next 18 years, the state is expected to collect more than $1 billion from opioid-related settlements. About 60% of those funds, or about $625 million, will be deposited into the opioid fund, while the remainder will be distributed to 150 cities and towns.
Under state law, the opioid fund money “shall be expended to mitigate the impacts of the opioid epidemic in the commonwealth, including, but not limited to, expanding access to opioid use disorder prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery options.”
“The Council recognizes the significant impact of these settlement funds in the Commonwealth’s efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, particularly through an equity lens,” Mahaniah wrote to lawmakers.
The money comes as the latest data shows the opioid epidemic cost Massachusetts nearly $145 billion in 2024, one of the highest costs in the nation, along with New Hampshire, Kentucky and Nevada.
A report by Avalere Health report — which analyzed health care costs, lost wages and work productivity, law enforcement expenses and other factors — found Opioid Use Disorder affects more than 2.5% of the state’s 7.1 million population.
Nationwide, opioid use disorder cost the U.S. an estimated $4 trillion last year, according to Avalere’s analysis that compared data from 2017 figures to project 2024 costs.
Like other states, Massachusetts is still grappling with a deadly wave of addiction that claimed thousands of lives from overdoses, despite a declining number of deaths. Many argue that the crisis has its roots in the oversubscribing of opioid medicines.
There were 2,125 confirmed or suspected opioid-related deaths in 2023, which is 232 fewer fatal overdoses than the same period in 2022, according to the latest data from the state Department of Public Health.
There were more than 500 confirmed or suspected opioid-related overdose fatalities in the first three months of 2024, the agency said.
State health officials say the majority of the overdose deaths were linked to the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Nationally, there were 107,543 overdose deaths reported in the U.S. in 2023, a 3% decrease from the estimated 111,029 in 2022, according to recently released U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Curbing opioid addiction has been a major focus on Beacon Hill for a number of years with hundreds of millions of dollars being devoted to expanding treatment and prevention efforts.
The state has some of the strictest opioid prescribing laws in the nation, including a cap on new prescriptions in a seven-day period and a requirement that doctors consult a state prescription monitoring database before prescribing an addictive opioid.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.