Stories to Watch in 2024: Nashville’s Opioid Abatement Programming

The first funds from opioid lawsuit settlements will be put into action in Nashville this year

There will be funding aplenty to address substance use disorder prevention and treatment in Nashville in the coming years. The question is, how will city leaders choose to spend it?

Nashville is expected to receive $23 million from various lawsuits in the next 18 years due to settlements from companies that made, distributed or sold opioid painkillers. Those include Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and Walmart, and the payments are part of much larger amounts filtering into the state. The first of those funds will be put into action this year.

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The Nashville-Davidson County Opioid Settlement Steering Committee has released a request for proposal for a 15-month pilot program, which focuses on connecting people to recovery, including medication-assisted treatment and short-term stays in recovery homes, as well as the hiring of peer recovery specialists. The pilot program will assist 50 to 60 individuals who have been hospitalized, incarcerated, administered naloxone (a treatment for opioid overdose) or referred by outreach services. The program will use a portion of the available funds and will have to be approved by the Metro Council.

As more national lawsuits are settled, the funds will continue to grow. The money flowing into the state is broken down into a number of sub-funds:

15 percent goes directly to counties, including $23 million to Davidson County so far
15 percent goes to the Tennessee General Assembly to spend as it chooses
70 percent goes into a bank account, managed by the Tennessee Opioid Abatement Council, called the Opioid Abatement Trust Fund.
Of that 70 percent, 35 percent is divided by the counties, but each county will have to certify that it complies with a list of strategies from the council. Davidson County received $3 million from this category in February.
The remaining percentage is open to grant proposals, for which details were released in September

In September, the Tennessee Opioid Abatement Council opened applications for $600 million over the next 18 years. After evaluating the pilot, the Davidson County steering committee will decide whether to request additional funds from the council.