A state board that oversees more than $2.5 billion in opioid settlement funds sent a letter criticizing the office that oversees their allocation for refusing to spend money on the city’s supervised drug use sites for the third year in a row.
The opioid settlement fund advisory board asked Dr. Chinazo Cunningham, commissioner of the Office of Addiction Services and Supports to reconsider her decision blocking the use of settlement funds for a study of overdose prevention centers – supervised drug use sites where staff can intervene in fatal overdoses. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration has rejected the board’s guidance to fund such sites since 2022, stating they would not stand up to federal laws prohibiting drug use.
Overdose prevention centers are “clearly delineated” as an eligible expenditure under the opioid settlement agreements, which outline how the state can use billions from litigation with opioid manufacturers, Justine Waldman, vice chair of the advisory board, wrote in the letter, sent on Wednesday and reviewed by Crain’s. Other states, including Vermont and Rhode Island, have authorized the use of settlement funds for overdose prevention pilots, putting New York behind the curve, Waldman said.
“History will look back on this time in New York’s history of responses to health crises,” Waldman said. “The state’s refusal to protect New Yorkers with proven public health strategy will not be understood or justified.”
Advisory board members have repeatedly asked the state to approve funding to study health outcomes at the two supervised drug use sites operated by nonprofit OnPoint NYC. The sites, located in Washington Heights and East Harlem, have successfully intervened in 1,700 deaths since 2021, according to data from the nonprofit.
Aside from a request to fund the centers, the board also asked the state to reverse its decision against sending money to the Office of Drug User Health, an agency run by the Department of Health that oversees harm reduction initiatives such as naloxone distribution and syringe exchange programs.
A representative from OASAS did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
The board and health advocates have criticized the state for slowly pushing out opioid settlement funds amid a persistent overdose crisis. Drug overdoses in New York reached historic highs in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic, mirroring the rest of the country. Though deaths have started to decline, more than 5,000 still died by overdose last year and rates are increasing in Black and brown communities, state data shows.
The slow stream of funding largely stems from the fact that OASAS did not have the infrastructure to release the influx of money from opioid settlements, said Tracie Gardner, executive director of the Black Harm Reduction Network and advisory board member. She added that more money should have gone to the Office of Drug User Health, which had a track record of funding and overseeing harm reduction initiatives.
Previously, the state has allocated $8 million to the agency to distribute the overdose-reversal medication naloxone, but it recently rejected additional spending to the agency – a move that Rob Kent, former general counsel for OASAS, called “mystifying.”
“I don’t understand it, other than, there’s been friction,” said Kent, now a health consultant. “I think OASAS wants to create something that DOH has been running for decades.”
The result, he said, is that providers are unable to scale up their harm reduction efforts to address the crisis.
“Now is not the time to say we succeeded, now is the time to double down,” Kent said. “If you’re losing 5,000 or 6,000 people, I don’t know what there is to cheer about.”
