An ice rink to fight the opioid crisis? Some regrets over how settlement cash was spent
A decision about how to spend settlement funds in a Kentucky country hard hit by the opioid epidemic, offers a window into the choices that surround this windfall.
A Kentucky county nestled in the heart of Appalachia, where the opioid crisis has wreaked devastation for decades, spent $15,000 of its opioid settlement money on an ice rink.
That amount wasn’t enough to solve the county’s troubles, but it could have bought 333 kits of Narcan, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses. Instead, people are left wondering how a skating rink addresses addiction or fulfills the settlement money’s purpose of remediating the harms of opioids.
Like other local jurisdictions nationwide, Carter County is set to receive a windfall of more than $1 million over the next decade-plus from companies that sold prescription painkillers and were accused of fueling the overdose crisis.
County officials and proponents of the rink say offering youths drug-free fun like skating is an appropriate use of the money. They provided free entry for students who completed the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) curriculum, recovery program participants, and foster families.
But for Brittany Herrington, who grew up in the region and became addicted to painkillers that were flooding the community in the early 2000s, the spending decision is “heartbreaking.”
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