Washington County residents and organizations can compete for funding to mitigate the opioid crisis. On-line applications and accompanying video statements for the grants are due to the county by October 10. Decisions on recipients will be made by the Opioid Settlement Council.

The money for the grants comes from a multistate coalition including Attorney General Keith Ellison that launched multiple investigations and lawsuits against drug companies and pharmacy chains for their role in the opioid crisis. The settlement money is over 25 billion dollars and will be available nationwide until 2038. Minnesota’s share is administered through the counties, cities, and the Minnesota Department of Health.

In this second round of funding in Washington County $700,000 is available. Recipients must be able to carry out programming in one of 13  strategy categories. High Priority areas include: treatment of Opioid Use Disorder; addressing the needs of criminal justice-involved persons; and preventing overdose deaths while implementing harm reduction.

As Attorney General Ellison said when he announced the settlement,””No amount of money can ever make up for the death and destruction that opioid manufacturers and distributors caused in their pure pursuit of profit. No amount of money can bring back the thousands of lives we’ve lost in Minnesota or fully restore the families and communities devastated in every part of our state. Now, we’ve brought together cities and counties from across Minnesota in a historic agreement to extract the maximum amount of money possible from these companies and get it to where the pain is, so we can address the suffering of families and communities in every part of our state.”

Your expertise and concern may persuade the Opioid Settlement Council to invest in your program so you can use evidence-based approaches to help eliminate the scourge of opioid use in Washington County.