Wareham to receive more than $750,000 in opioid treatment, recovery funding

Wareham will receive more than $750,000 in cumulative payments over 16 years as part of a statewide settlement with opioid distributors and manufacturers.

After Massachusetts’ $26 billion resolution with several drug companies, the state has received $525 million in funds to go toward prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery programs, Attorney General Maura Healey announced Tuesday, April 5.

The state’s multi-billion-dollar resolution with the nation’s largest drug distributors, Cardinal, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Johnson & Johnson, which manufactured and marketed opioids, was first announced in July 2021.

In Tuesday’s announcement, Healey’s office published a document detailing the exact dollar amounts each included town will receive as part of the resolution.

Wareham is slated to receive $85,013 in 2022, the document states. The attorney general’s office stated in an attached FAQ that funds are expected to start flowing to towns in the spring and summer of 2022.

The payments are expected to arrive in July from 2022 to 2038, adding up to $755,959 by the last year.

Wareham officials have expressed frustration in the past about the town’s lack of resources available to combat the opioid epidemic. More than 70 people have died in Wareham in confirmed opioid-related overdoses between 2015 and 2020, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

All funds are meant to go toward abatement resources for communities to help with the effects of the opioid crisis, Healey’s office said.

“Massachusetts led the nation in taking on the opioid industry, and we will lead the nation in delivering prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery,” Healey said in her announcement. “Cities and towns across our state worked together to secure more than half a billion dollars, and we are committed to using every dollar to provide the services that families need.”

More than $310 million of the settlement will be directed toward the statewide Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund.

The settlements came, Healey’s office said, after an investigation found the three opioid distributors sent thousands of suspicious orders without regard for their legitimacy, and that Johnson & Johnson misled patients and doctors about their addictive effects.