Bernalillo County has only spent a fraction of its opioid settlement money. What have they gotten for it?

Tables at baseball games. Health fairs with Narcan and information on what to do when someone overdoses. Stories from parents who lost a child to an overdose. Large billboards and a candlelight vigil, all part of Bernalillo County’s fentanyl education and awareness efforts last year.

Bernalillo County got $17.8 million in opioid settlement money in late December, and the county already has spent about $1.6 million of the $4.3 million it received early in 2023.

The county allocated $975,000 for the marketing and outreach campaign and $579,749 for the Metropolitan Detention Center buprenorphine program. The marketing and outreach campaign was buoyed by another $300,000 from the city of Albuquerque, said Lisa Sedillo-White, deputy county manager of general services.

New Mexico sued companies that made and sold addictive narcotic painkillers in the state in 2017. It was among dozens of lawsuits for which the state negotiated settlements, which together are bringing millions into the state meant to address damage from the opioid crisis.

The state Attorney General’s Office collects opioid settlement payments from the defendants — including Walgreens, KVK-Tech, Amneal, Hikma, CVS, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Janssen and Mallinckrodt Bankruptcy — and distributes the money.

The Metropolitan Detention Center buprenorphine program treats opioid use disorders using methadone or buprenorphine (also known as suboxone), which prevent opioid withdrawal symptoms and cravings.

The pilot program began with 22 patients in 2020, but had 120 maintenance patients by May 2023. The startup funding from the Behavioral Health Initiative was going to be exhausted by June 2023, according to county spokesperson Kristen Ferguson.

The $579,749 in settlement funds helped keep the program going without interruption or a reduction in the number of people served, according to Ferguson. BHI requested future funding in fiscal year 2024 to support the program.

In 2023, 1,505 people used the program, with an average of 29 new clients per month and maintenance support for approximately 150 clients per month.

“The first part of our campaign was on the faces of fentanyl — those families that have lost a loved one,” Sedillo-White said. “... We’re going to ‘faces of recovery.’ We need to give our community hope, that there is hope in recovery.”

The fentanyl awareness campaign has made in-person contact with 7,500 people, and it distributed and trained for use of 750 Narcan kits, according to Sedillo-White. Marketing through television, billboards and social media made at least 96 million impressions. The campaign should have enough funding to continue until the end of the fiscal year in June, and the county has requested $2.3 million from the state Legislature to keep it going.

The county collaborated on outreach with a wide range of partners. Funding supported tabling at Isotopes games, eight schools, Central New Mexico Community College, Duke City Gladiators indoor football games, health fairs and concerts at the Isleta Amphitheater, training for casino staff, community workshops and workshops for employers on substance abuse, and advertising in Spanish and English on TV, radio stations, at gas stations and laundromats with a focus on fentanyl prevention, Sedillo-White said. They tackled Ribbon Week in October with a movie screening, speakers in Civic Plaza and a candlelight vigil. A marketing consultant also is helping the county reorganize the keepNMalive website. There is work on putting up advertisements at city bus shelters.

Bernalillo County and the city of Albuquerque committed in October to create a unified plan for spending more settlement money. The two entities are expected to get $147 million total. The commissioners want a spending plan by October.