A Kentucky County located in the heart of Appalachia, where the opioid crisis has caused devastation for decades, spent $ 15,000 of its opioid settlement money on an ice rink.
That amount was not enough to solve the county problems, but I could have bought 333 Narcan Kits, a medicine that can reverse opioid overdose. Instead, people wonder how a skating track addresses addiction or meets the purpose of liquidation money to remedy opioid damage.
Like other local jurisdictions throughout the country, Carter County will receive an unexpected gain of more than $ 1 million during the next decade of more companies that sold prescription analgesics and were accused of feeding the overdose crisis.
Officials and defenders of the track county say that offering drug -free fun as skating is an appropriate use of money. They provided a free admission for students who completed the Drug Abuse Resistance Study Curriculum (Dare), participants of the recovery program and reception families.
But for Brittany Herrington, who grew in the region and became addicted to analgesics that flooded the community in the early 2000s, the expenses decision is “heartbreaking.”
“How will you teach ice skating? [kids] How to navigate the recovery, how to address these problems within your home, how to understand addiction disease? Herrington said, which is now recovering in the long term and works for a community mental health center, as well as a regional coalition to address the use of substances.
She and other local defenders agreed that children deserve enriching activities, but said that the community has more pressing needs than the agreement of the agreement intended to cover.
The drug overdose mortality rate of Carter County constantly exceeds state and national averages. From 2018 to 2021, when overdose deaths increased throughout the country, the rate was 2.5 times higher in Carter County, according to the NORC Research Organization.
Other communities have used similar amounts of liquidation funds to train community health workers to help people with addiction and buy a car to take people in recovery to work interviews and medical appointments.
Local defenders say that $ 15,000 could have expanded innovative projects that already operate in the northeast of Kentucky, such as the first front day, which helps people leave prison, many of whom have a substance use disorder and Second opportunity employment program at the University of Kentucky St. Claire’s Health System, which hires people in recovery to work in the system and pay to attend the university or a certification program.
“We have these incredible programs that we know are effective,” said Herrington. “And we are putting an ice skating track. That is crazy for me.”
A one -year investigation by KFF Health News, together with researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg University School of Public Health and the National Furrese Organization Shatterproof, found many jurisdictions spent on settlement funds in articles and services with connections with connections Low, if any, to addiction. Oregon City, Oregon, spent about $ 30,000 on lifeguard detection evaluators. Flint, Michigan, bought a sign of almost $ 10,000 for a building in the Community Service Center, and Robeson County, North Carolina, paid around $ 10,000 for an ambulance of toy robot.
Although most agreements agree with national guidelines that explain that money must be spent on the treatment, recovery and prevention efforts, there is little supervision and the guidelines are open to interpretation.
A Kentucky law lists more than two dozen suggested uses of the funds, including providing addiction treatment in jail and educating the public about opioid elimination. But it is plagued with a similar lack of supervision and broad interpretability.
Chris Huddle and Harley Rayburn, both elected Carter Count De Reneé Parsons, Executive Director of The Business Cultivation Foundation. The Foundation aims to alleviate poverty and related problems, such as addiction, through economic development in the northeast of Kentucky.
Carter County Times reported that Parsons has helped at least nine local organizations to request liquidation dollars. The minutes of the County meeting show that it brought the proposal of the skating track to the county leaders in the name of the Tourism Commission of the City of Grayson, asking the County to cover approximately a quarter of the cost of the project.
In an email, Parsons told Kff Health News that the track, which was built in the center of Grayson last year and organized fund collectors for youth clubs and sports teams during the Christmas season, serves to “promote the family connection and healing “while” laying the foundations for the basis for a hockey program throughout the year. “
“Without investments in prevention, recovery and economic development, we run the risk of perpetuating the addiction cycle in future generations,” he added.
She said the track, as well as an investment of $ 80,000 opioid settlement funds to expand music and theater programs in a community center, fit the principles of the Icelandic prevention model, “which has been accepted not officially in our region “.
That model is a community -based collaborative approach to prevent the use of substances that has been highly effective to reduce the consumption of adolescent alcohol in Iceland in the last 20 years. Instead of waiting for children to “simply say no,” he focuses on creating an environment where young people can prosper without drugs.
Part of this effort may involve the creation of fun activities such as music classes, theatrical shows and even ice skating. But the intervention also requires building a coalition of parents, school employees, leaders of faith, public health workers, researchers and others, and making a rigorous data collection, including annual students of students.
About 120 miles west Carter County, another Kentucky County has been implementing the Icelandic model in recent years. Franklin’s Just Say Yes Program includes more than a dozen collaborating organizations and an annual in -depth youth survey. The project began with the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and also received dollars of opioid liquidation of the State.
Parsons did not answer specific questions about whether Carter County has taken the complete complement to the steps in the center of the Icelandic model.
If you have not done, you cannot expect to obtain the same results, said Jennifer Carroll, a researcher who studies the use of substances and wrote a national guide on the investment of liquidation funds in young people centered in young people.
“Separating different elements, in the best case, will generally lose your money and, in the worst case, can be counterproductive or even harmful,” he said.
At least a Carter County magistrate regrets having spent liquidation funds on the skating track.
Millard Cordle told Kff Health News that, after seeing that the track operated during the holidays, he felt it was “a mistake.” Although the younger children seemed to enjoy it, older children did not get so involved, nor did they benefit the rural parts of the county, he said. In the future, I would prefer to see that the liquidation money helps to get drugs out of the street and offer treatment of people or job training.
“We all learn as we advance,” he said. “I know there is no easy solution. But I think this money can help make a dent. “
As of 2024, Carter County had received more than $ 630,000 in opioid liquidation funds and was ready to receive more than $ 1.5 million in the next decade, according to the online records of the liquidation administrator designated by the Court.
It is not clear how much of that money it has been spent, beyond the $ 15,000 for the ice rink and $ 80,000 for the Community Arts Center.
It is also uncertain who, if someone, has the power to determine whether the track was a allowed use of money or if the county would face repercussions.
The Kentucky opioid absence advisory commission, which controls half of the state’s opioid liquidation funds and serves as a leading voice in this money, declined to comment.
Cities and counties must present quarterly certifications to the commission, promising that their expense is in line with state guidelines. However, reports do not provide details on how money is used, leaving the commission with little processable information.
At a January meeting, the members of the Commission voted to create a report system for local governments that would provide more detailed information, which could open the door to greater supervision.
That would be a welcome change, said John Bowman, a person in recovery in the northeast of Kentucky, who called the money that Carter County spent on the ice ink “a waste.”
Bowman works in the reform of criminal justice with the non -profit national Dream.org and meets people with disorders for substance use daily, while fighting to find treatment, a safe place to live and transport. Some have to drive more than an hour to the doctor, he said, if they have a car.
He expects local leaders to use liquidation funds to address problems such as those of the future.
“Let’s use this money for what it is,” he said.
