City begins spending its share of opioid settlements

The City of Eden Prairie is in the early stage of spending what could be nearly $1 million in lawsuit settlement money from this country’s decades-long opioid crisis.

Most of the settlement money spent by the city so far – $40,000 – has been used to pay part of the salary for a social worker embedded in the Eden Prairie Police Department, according to the city’s finance department.

Another $13,000 has been used for equipment to test and process seized drugs, and more than $7,400 has been used to purchase Narcan, which first responders carry to local emergencies.

Narcan is a brand of medication called naloxone that is used to reverse an opioid overdose. It can be used on overdose victims encountered by police and fire staff and protect those first responders whose work puts them in close proximity to dangerous drugs like fentanyl.

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Future spending might also include stipends that help certain residents afford opioid addiction treatment, said Police Chief Matt Sackett.

The spending initiatives, he said, fulfill the goal of helping people and protecting first responders. “I think that’s super important,” Sackett stated.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office estimates that Eden Prairie could receive almost $527,000 from the settlement with opioid painkiller manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and distributors, and nearly $429,000 more from what the state calls “second wave settlements.” The state says those are maximum amounts contingent on how many local governments participate and caveats in the settlement agreements.

The money, allocated in pieces over the coming years, must be used for what officials call opioid “abatement,” including drug prevention and treatment. The city is required to provide the state with annual reports on how the money is being spent.

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All told, more than $50 billion in settlement funds from pharmaceutical companies that made and sold opioid painkillers will be paid out over 18 years to state and local governments across the country. Minnesota will be eligible to receive more than $296 million over that period, according to the state. Up to $222 million of that will be paid directly to Minnesota cities and counties.

Opioid-involved overdose deaths in the U.S. rose from 49,860 in 2019 to 81,806 in 2022, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It’s still a problem: In Hennepin County, with a population of 1.25 million, opioid-related deaths more than doubled between 2019 and 2022, to a high of 424. The number dropped to 296 in 2023, but it was still higher than the 2019 level.

Sackett says using opioid settlement money to help pay for embedded, full-time social worker Molly Mitley makes sense since a large part of her time is spent helping people with substance abuse issues by referring them to treatment options.

Elina Curran, president of the Eden Prairie-based Chris Wivholm Foundation, indicated she supports how the city is using its allotment.

The nonprofit foundation was started by Curran when her only son, Chris Wivholm, died of a fentanyl overdose in 2018. Its mission is to fund addiction research, end social stigmas against families and individuals struggling with opioid addiction, and award an annual scholarship in Chris’s name.

“I think that a good social worker that knows and understands the disease of addiction is a great asset to the community,” Curran stated. “I just hope that people know about this person and are not afraid to reach out. I would say that we need more professionals like that.”

Equipping first responders with Narcan is also important, she said, especially since it is needed in higher doses due to the stronger drugs obtained by users.

She said helping addicts with treatment costs, establishing “sober houses” in communities, and countering the stigma of addiction would also be good uses for Eden Prairie’s opioid settlement money.

The foundation has put emphasis on working with University of Minnesota scientists to highlight the neurological underpinnings of drug addiction. The university, in turn, has developed a graduate program in neuroscience to advance that work.

City staff keep the opioid settlement money in a separate fund and annually ask the city council to approve a resolution on its proposed use. The city is currently in year two of the program, and Sackett says they’re looking for uses that will have a positive effect over the long term.

“We have a plan with this to last us quite a while,” he said. “I don’t think the need for these kinds of services are going to go away.”