Thurston County and its jurisdictions are “ahead of the curve” as they begin to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement funding from state and county lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors and marketers.
The county and the cities of Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater make up an Opioid Abatement Council (OAC) as part of the One Washington Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to provide oversight of the spending of settlement funding toward the opioid epidemic. To date, the county alone has received nearly $3.5 million in settlements from 11 companies, and county officials estimate that the jurisdiction will receive a total of nearly $10.4 million through 2038.
Thurston County filed a lawsuit in 2018, along with Washington state and other local jurisdictions, against companies involved in opioid manufacturing, distribution and marketing. Multiple lawsuits have been finalized between 2022 and 2024, and additional settlements are possible as opioid litigation continues.
The county has not spent any of its settlement funds yet, according to Katie Strozyk, county opioid and overdose response program manager.
Strozyk told the Board of County Commissioners during a Wednesday work session that the county is ahead of others in the MOU regarding its priorities and plans of action with the funds. Not only has the county established its OAC, but it has also built an opioid response plan that compiles community-based input for priority areas.
“We’re one of the only counties that has an opioid response plan that’s formalized like this with ongoing community input. A lot of the other jurisdictions, when they look at the need for community input and prioritization, they’re starting at the very beginning,” Strozyk said. “We really are ahead of the curve with having that process already done.”
Strozyk described the approved uses for the settlement funds as outlined in the MOU. Uses include treatment; connections to care; recovery support services; primary prevention; overdose prevention; harm reduction; first responders; leadership, planning, and coordination; training; and research.
The county’s core strategies are a bit more detailed in terms of how it plans to use funds for remediation. Its priorities include the purchase of naloxone, medications for opioid use disorder and other treatment options, support for pregnant and postpartum individuals, expanding treatment for neonatal abstinence syndrome, expansion of warm hand-off programs and recovery services, treatment for incarcerated populations, prevention programs, and expanding syringe service programs.
Thurston County was originally placed in a seven-county allocation region with Lewis, Mason, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties. But the participating jurisdictions found the layout difficult, so subregions were established. Thurston County and the cities of Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater make up one subregion that is bound by both the MOU and an interlocal agreement signed in 2023.
According to County Manager Leonard Hernandez, the four partners previously discussed drafting a new MOU that codified the pooling of resources, as the current MOU doesn’t necessarily allow for the pooling of resources between the jurisdictions. He said each partner uses the resources on their own perceived needs.
Strozyk said the next steps for the county are to reconvene with the OAC to discuss further edits to the current MOU and the potential drafting of another MOU.
To learn more about Thurston County’s opioid settlement funds, read previous Chronicle reporting at https://tinyurl.com/eut6xtx4.
Opioid settlements can be tracked online at opioidsettlementtracker.com.
