PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Massachusetts is expected to receive a billion dollars through settlements with various companies that have supplied opioids. 

 

Sixty percent of these monies will go toward the Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund to help manage state efforts with 40 percent going towards municipalities.

 

State public health officials have been holding listening sessions on how to best to use the settlement. Some of those ideas in Berkshire County were drug courts and mandatory treatment, recovery programs for mothers with small children, and lowering barriers for transitioning into treatment. 

 

On March 12, epidemiologist Casey Leon and Director of Opioid Abatement Strategy and Implementation Julia Newhall from the Bureau of Substance Addiction Services, and Erika Hensel project manager for opioid response with the Attorney General's Office, attended a session at the Living in Recovery Center. 

 

Andy Ottoson, who co-facilitates substance prevention and overdose reduction programs at the Berkshire Regional Planning Commissions through the Berkshire Overdose Addiction Prevention Collaboration, led the conversation.

 

In attendance were also District Attorney Timothy Shugrue, state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, Berkshire Athenaeum social worker Gabriela Leon, and city and recovery center representatives.

 

Shugrue said low-level drug cases should be diverted into treatment pretrial rather than prosecuted. He said many courts and counsels are not using the programs available or are unaware of diversion options. He asked if there could be training for judges to promote diversion as an option and to coordinate so that more people are diverted early, which could help reduce overdose risk.