Opioid Settlement Spending: The Importance of Lived/Living Experience Voices
By John Bowman, Campaign Manager
Kentucky is set to receive over ONE BILLION DOLLARS in OPIOID SETTLEMENT FUNDS over the next 15 years. We are receiving these funds because countless Kentuckians have had their lives ruined due to the over-prescribing of extremely dangerous and addictive drugs to our families, friends, and communities. These funds are meant as a way to help our state and communities heal, meet people where they are, and find ways to prevent future generations from enduring the same preventable disaster of the opioid epidemic. This is where the importance of lived and living experience come in.
When it comes to spending this money, I want to make sure that we don’t squander it, like we did with the tobacco settlement. Kentucky was one of the states that led the way for years in fatal overdoses and a lot of family, friends, and neighbors were lost. Now I want us to lead the nation in the best use of opioid settlement funds. Every single community in our state has been impacted by this. For those of us who lived through the hell of opioid addiction and for those that didn’t make it out, we have a responsibility to make sure that these funds are spent correctly and not wasted on budget gaps and egos.
As someone who was fortunate enough to survive the opioid epidemic, I feel that folks like myself can help our state, county, and city governments spend these dollars wisely. Every community across the Commonwealth has someone directly impacted by the opioid epidemic who knows what will and won’t work in their communities when it comes to combating opioid addiction. Let’s lean into their lived/living experience and start to rebuild our communities with love, compassion, and empathy. Let’s help folks transform the worst time in their lives into the ability to help our communities avoid having to endure that hell again. The people that can help us get there are the people who have made it out the other side of this epidemic.
It bears repeating that every community across the commonwealth has been negatively impacted by the opioid epidemic because the disease of addiction does not discriminate. This disease doesn’t care how you vote, what race you are, or what class you belong to. Now we have the opportunity to unite and lead the nation in the best practices for our state and our communities and show others how to recover from this epidemic. This is going to take all of us working together with compassion and empathy to begin healing not only our beautiful people but the communities who make the Commonwealth of Kentucky so special.
We can either do this the right way or all of our family, friends, neighbors, and loved ones died in vain. I refuse to let that be the case. I will continue to be a voice for those who didn’t make it out of the madness and make sure we never forget why we have these funds or repeat the same mistakes that got us here. Let’s make Kentucky a world leader in the way we treat not only the disease of addiction but those who struggle with substance use disorder.
