Kentucky AG gets green light to spend millions in opioid ‘blood money’ on youth prevention

By: - September 10, 2024 3:43 pm

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, addressing the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, proposes putting $3.6 million from settlement funds into youth prevention, Sept. 10, 2024. (Photo courtesy Office of the Attorney General)

Kentucky’s Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission voted in favor of spending $3.6 million over the next two years on a three-part addiction prevention campaign geared toward youth proposed by Attorney General Russell Coleman Tuesday.?

The funds that the commission is in charge of distributing, which come from legal settlements with drug companies, “represent the shared pain of families across this commonwealth,” Coleman said Tuesday.?

He asked the commission for permission to spend a slice of this “blood money” to reach young people across Kentucky between the ages of 13 and 26. No members voted against his request, and no one abstained. The money will be split into $1.8 million each year.

Coleman’s campaign, modeled after a Florida initiative, has three parts. The first is an ad campaign called Better Without It, to be featured on social media, on college campuses and more. Coleman pointed to the well-known “Click it or ticket” campaign as an example that “these types of education campaigns can work.”?

The ads, which will also be pushed by influencers, will be tailored to Kentucky, using photographers and creators who Coleman said can make the material “look and sound and feel and smell like the commonwealth.”?

The second arm of the campaign is to “weave together” Kentucky’s “patchwork” of school-based prevention programs so kids have access to more cohesive resources. Lastly, Coleman said, the campaign will “elevate and draw attention to the ongoing work of this commission.”?

“I’m asking you to zealously collaborate with us so that we can reach young people where they are to prevent them from taking their first — and in this environment, too oftentimes their last — experimentation … with this poison.” – Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman

Overdose deaths in Kentucky decreased in 2023 for the second year in a row, according to this year’s Drug Overdose Fatality Report. In 2022, 2,135 Kentuckians died from an overdose, marking the first decline since 2018. Ninety percent of those deaths were from opioids and fentanyl.?

In 2023, the number of fatal overdoses was down to 1,984. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, accounted for 1,570 of those — about 79% of the 2023 deaths. The 35-44 age group was most at risk, the report shows. Methamphetamine accounted for 55% of 2023’s overdose deaths.?

From 2021 to 2023, around 460 Kentuckians under the age of 34 died from overdoses, according to that report.?

Members of the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission met in Frankfort, Sept. 10, 2024. (Photo courtesy of the Office of Attorney General)

“We know young people are more likely to be influenced by their peers than (by) someone who looks like me,” Coleman said. “Honest and productive conversations about the dangers of substance abuse among students can be a force multiplier.”?

People in their teens and early 20s and those with a family history of addiction are most at risk for opioid use disorder, according to the Mayo Clinic.?

“I’m asking you to zealously collaborate with us so that we can reach young people where they are to prevent them from taking their first — and in this environment, too oftentimes their last — experimentation … with this poison,” Coleman told commission members.?

Coleman said “as little as one fentanyl pill can — and is — killing our neighbors. … We live at a time where there is no margin of error. It simply does not exist. There’s no such thing as safe, no such concept or notion of safe experimentation with narcotics.”

The commission was created by the state legislature in 2021 and has nine voting and two non-voting members.?

Kentucky receives installments toward $900 million in settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors. So far, it has awarded 110 grants worth more than $55 million toward treatment, prevention and recovery efforts.??

The commission next meets on Oct. 8.?

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

Creative Commons License

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our website. AP and Getty images may not be republished. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of any other photos and graphics.

Sarah Ladd
Sarah Ladd

Sarah Ladd is a Louisville-based journalist from West Kentucky who's covered everything from crime to higher education. She spent nearly two years on the metro breaking news desk at The Courier Journal. In 2020, she started reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and has covered health ever since. As the Kentucky Lantern's health reporter, she focuses on mental health, LGBTQ+ issues, children's welfare, COVID-19 and more.

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

MORE FROM AUTHOR