‘They’re sitting on money while people die’: Mississippi is years behind other states in using opioid settlements to address addiction

Opioid overdoses have killed thousands of Mississippians in the last decade, and Attorney General Lynn Fitch and the state Legislature have said the crisis requires effective, bipartisan solutions.

But three years into managing money intended to address this crisis, state and local leaders have committed less opioid settlement money to prevent overdoses than every other state in the country — both in total dollars and as a percentage of settlement shares.

Elected officials have reported using less than $1 million of the over $124 million in opioid settlement funds they manage for direct measures to combat addiction, according to public records Mississippi Today requested. The other 49 states, including ones receiving significantly less money, have allocated at least $3 million each from