April 5, 2023 By Carol Britton Meyer
Hingham’s share of the latest National Opioid Settlement is $811,000, to be used for the intended purposes of education, prevention, and/or treatment.
This good news was shared at Tuesday’s Select Board meeting.
These settlements — starting in 2021 — were reached to resolve opioids litigation brought by states against large pharmaceutical distributors and manufacturers.
The lawsuits relate to the role these companies played in the opioid crisis, which has caused hundreds of thousands of fatalities in this country, including overdoses and other negative impacts from substance misuse in Hingham and surrounding communities over many years.
The latest litigation involves Allergan, Teva, Walmart, CVS, and Walgreen’s. These settlements provide funds over a period of years for opioid abatement, remediation, and assistance in local communities.
A subsequent Select Board meeting will determine the specific use of these funds.
As background, the Massachusetts attorney general initiated the litigation against opioid distributors and manufacturers — as have many other states –and recommended that all municipalities join in the settlement litigation at no cost to the town.
Attorney Kerry Ryan explained the details to the board. “These are long-term settlement funds in addition to previous settlements,” he said. “This is the third time that settlement agreements have come up. There has been overwhelming participation in all of them, and I don’t anticipate this one to be any different.”
All that was required for Hingham to benefit from this latest round of funding resulting from the litigation was for the board to opt in by signing an agreement, a step that was approved this week.
According to Assistant Town Administrator for Operations Art Robert, the town has $214,000 remaining from previous agreements. All that’s required to put the funds to good use is a Town Meeting vote to use them for the specified purposes and to be set aside in a separate fund.
“We could use the money to hire a part-time outreach person, for community outreach, or to issue vouchers for some of the funds to get people into treatment,” Robert said. “We will hone our approach and decide how to use these additional funds, which will begin coming us over the course of this summer and Fall, to make an impact.”
The funds can be carried over from year to year until they are spent and cannot be used for any other purpose.
“We will have a public discussion about these funds and solicit feedback from residents on how to best use them before we make any decisions,” Select Board Chair William Ramsey said.