Thumbnail photo courtesy of Jermaine Brubaker Editor’s note: Rx Safe Del Norte and KFUG Community Radio LLP — Redwood Voice’s parent organization — are currently partnering together on TACOCAT, a teen-based program aimed at spreading awareness about opioid abuse in Del Norte County. Calling the roughly $4 million in opioid settlement dollars Del Norte County is set to receive a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” members of a local coalition stated that it plans to use that money to close the gaps that contributed to the crisis. The opioid litigation work group’s plan calls for increasing treatment capacity in the jail as well as inside and outside of Del Norte County, according to Behavioral Health Deputy Director Shiann Hogan. The plan also aims to use settlement dollars to better equip law enforcement, emergency personnel and other providers to meet the community’s needs. According to Hogan, the group’s plan focuses on using opioid settlement dollars Del Norte County currently has. “Currently we expect we’re going to receive $1.5 million by the end of this fiscal year,” she told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. “Many of these settlements are still in litigation. More money could be expected.” After they commemorated September as Recovery Awareness Month, three Del Norte County supervisors approved the work group’s implementation plan. They also approved the transfer of about $1.1 million the county currently has in settlement dollars to the Behavioral Health Branch. Supervisors Chris Howard and Dean Wilson were absent. The county’s plan for how it will use its settlement funds comes at a time when the number of opioid-related deaths in Del Norte County exceeds the state average, according to Jermaine Brubaker, facilitator for the Rx Safe Del Norte coalition. In 2022, Del Norte County ranked No. 1 in California with an opioid-related death rate of 74.2 per 100,000 residents, Brubaker said, using California Department of Public Health statistics. Roughly 20 residents died of an overdose that year, she said. In 2023, Del Norte’s opioid-related death rate dropped to 42.73 per 100,000 residents, making it No. 6 in the state for deaths per-capita. According to Brubaker, 11 Del Norters died in 2023 as a result of opioid use. While that rate decreased, she said, the county still outpaced other communities when it comes to the number of people visiting the emergency room because of an overdose. There were 48 opioid-related emergency room visits in Del Norte County about two years ago, according to Brubaker’s information. “Although people are not dying — our death rates are declining — we’re still seeing a lot of people overdosing in our community,” she said. Del Norte County also had more prescriptions than residents from 2008 when data collection began to 2017, according to the Opioid Working Group’s plan. Del Norte still ranks No. 6 in the state in opioid prescription rates at 500.54 per 1,000 residents compared to the state average of 295.98 per 1,000 residents. However, the working group’s plan states that the increased presence of fentanyl in other drugs has caused an increase in unintentional overdose deaths. “Fake pills, laced with illicit drugs like methamphetamines, have driven our overdose and hospitalization rates up while we are decreasing our prescriptions,” the Working Group’s plan states. Del Norte County supervisors in March 2023 voted to join a multi-state settlement agreement with opioid manufacturers Teva and Allergan and pharmacies Walmart, Walgreens and CVS. They established the opioid litigation working group in September 2023 at the advice of County Counsel Jacqueline Roberts who, in a presentation, said that settlement dollars could address the needs of people of color and those who are homeless who disproportionately live with substance abuse disorder. Those funds could also be used to help those with addiction find treatment options in lieu of winding up in the criminal justice system, Roberts told supervisors at a Sept. 26, 2023 meeting. Supervisors established the working group about a month later. Group members include Health and Human Services Director Ranell Brown, Behavioral Health Program Coordinator Naome Workman, District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey, local attorney Elly Hoopes and Yurok Joint Family Wellness Court coordinator Anthony Trombetti. Hogan, Brubaker and Roberts are also part of the working group. Several of the working group members, including Hogan, Brubaker and Starkey also took part in the Reaching Rural Initiative, an eight-county federal Bureau of Justice Assistance initiative aimed at stemming the tide of opioid abuse in rural communities. On Wednesday, Hogan said Del Norte will receive more than $4 million in opioid settlement dollars by 2038, though the plan supervisors approved focuses on “what we know we have at this moment.” State and local governments receiving settlement dollars are required to use them to strengthen treatment, prevention, harm reduction and recovery supports, according to the Opioid Litigation Work Group’s plan. In California, the Department of Health Care Services and the Attorney General’s Office oversees how local jurisdictions use those dollars. During public comment, county resident Alicia Williams said that the plan doesn’t focus its resources on reducing prescription opioids and naloxone is a Band-Aid. She also called upon the county to re-establish a drug task force and to create a program like Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1983 and was active in the United States through the early 2000s. “That was really great and it works because you’re able to have interface with people that are in that field,” she said, referring to law enforcement. “You’re young. You’re not intimidated because you’re in a setting with law enforcement that’s positive and you’re getting the education, terminology, and you’re doing it at an age that’s pivotal.” Working group member Trombetti, who was also part of the Reaching Rural Initiative, begged to differ. DARE was a complete failure, he said, though he didn’t say why. “If someone wants to bring that forward again, I think they need to get a little more insight because we’re all capable of some hindsight,” Trombetti said. “We have potential for insight, and this group that I’ve been working [with] has some foresight. And that’s what I think we are bringing here as a group and as a community and as a county is some insight and some foresight.”