NY opioid settlement money in danger of being co‐opted by the state

Abstract

Advocates across the country have been eagerly awaiting proceeds from lawsuits against the opioid pharmaceutical industry. The New York State legislature passed a bill designed to make sure that the opioid settlement money did not suffer the same fate as the Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and states' attorneys general in the late ‘90s in which the money that was supposed to go to treatment for tobacco‐related diseases went instead into the state coffers (see Opioid settlement money for treatment? It's up to the states, ADAW Sept. 13, 2021; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33186?af=R). The legislature guaranteed that an independent advisory board would make recommendations on how the opioid settlement money would be spent (see New York law paves way for distributing opioid settlement funds to treatment, ADAW July 11, 2021; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33127). But the first batch of that money, $208 million, has apparently been disappearing into a state‐run secret system in which the advisory board is being shafted. The money is shepherded by the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS).