Opioid Settlement – WVU Student Series

Despite Research, W.Va. Counties Don't Fund Harm Reduction With Opioid Funds

Syringe Service Programs (SSP) are highly regulated in the state of West Virginia, and service providers say it makes it almost impossible to run one. But SSPs are associated with an approximately 50% reduction in HIV and HCV incidence, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Politically Connected Program Gets Opioid Funds While Experts Warn It May Not Work

GameChanger, a statewide prevention education program, is funded by the business community, the government and private companies, according to its founder. But they are also being funded by a new source of money: global opioid settlement funds. 

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Some W.Va. Counties Pay Jail Debt With Opioid Funds, Citing Budget Strains

Wyoming County is one of the state’s most rural. It’s home to about 20,000 residents, but no hospital and zero certified treatment beds, according to the West Virginia Office of Drug Control Policy. As the nation’s opioid overdose epidemic raged, Wyoming County had a prescription overdose death rate of 54.6 per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014 — the highest in the nation.

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W.Va. Counties Set The Rules For Opioid Funds — With No One Watching

An investigation conducted by journalism students at West Virginia University’s Reed School of Media shows the oversight and accountability built into local spending of opioid settlement funds can be markedly inconsistent from county to county.

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