The Pima County Board of Supervisors approved the allocation of $180,000 in settlement funds for opioid mitigation efforts at a board meeting Tuesday. The allocated funds will enable the immediate purchase and distribution of Narcan, the brand name of naloxone, a drug used to control opioid overdose.
Funding comes from the One Arizona Agreement, a statewide instrument for the distribution of the National Opioid Reconciliation Fund. Beginning in late 2022, Pima County and partner jurisdictions began receiving approximately $3 million in payments from the National Opioid Settlement.
Pima County Health Director Dr Teresa Cullen said the county is currently distributing about 1,200 to 1,500 doses of Narcan throughout the community out of about 20,000 kits distributed each month. .
“We are saving lives every time we administer Narcan, which is very important, but it is creating a need now,” Karen said.
The new funds will cover approximately 6,000 units of Narcan.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francisco Garcia says that in recent years, about 50 to 60 percent of overdose deaths have been linked to fentanyl. A deputy county administrator called the drug “ubiquitous” because of its affordability and availability.
“It’s the perfect drug for abuse,” Garcia said.
Cullen said the county is also in the process of applying for a grant from the CDC for the Overdose Data 2 Action (OD2A) program.
“This funding has just been made available in the region,” says Cullen. “We get a small amount of money from them, about $450,000 from the state that we used to address overdose best practices,” she said.
The Board of Health is also in contact with county administrations regarding the establishment of multi-agency collaborations.
Next year, the Department of Health will hire staff to oversee community outreach efforts addressing mental health and substance abuse throughout the county.
The mayor and city council also approved additional opioid settlements to the One Arizona agreement at Tuesday’s city council meeting. The request made by the mayor and city attorney proposed an intergovernmental agreement with Pima County regarding the distribution of the Opioid Reconciliation Fund.
The City will be eligible to receive an additional $8.9 million through the One Arizona Agreement.
City Attorney Mike Rankin said the proposal would work under the existing structure of the One Arizona Settlement.
“As the litigation continues to progress, we thought it would be a good idea to continue working within that framework because of the additional settlement revenues that would ultimately be generated through these,” Rankin said.
In November and December of last year, new nationwide opioid settlements were reached between two pharmaceutical companies, Teva and Allergan, and three pharmacies: CVS, Walgreens and Walmart.
In 2015, a community health needs assessment identified substance misuse and addiction as a priority public health problem for local communities for the first time. Since 2017, he has had 2,407 overdose deaths in Pima County due to multiple substances. Of those reported by the coroner’s office, 991 were fentanyl related.
