The reality of opioid abatement funds is that they are “legally porous, ” lawyers write in the January 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. They began by comparing the funds to the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) for tobacco, which gave 9 billion to states for helping fight smoking, and instead wound up in state general funds. The opioid abatement funds also delegate authority to the states. This they write in “The Lifesaving Potential of Opioid Abatement Funds, ” has not worked as well as it could have, because many states still have an “unmet need for medication‐assisted treatment. ” The corresponding author is Christopher Robertson, JD, Ph. D. , of Boston University School of Law.
Alison Knopf (Fri,) studied this question.