Georgia commissioner prioritizes opioid crisis

ATLANTA, Ga. (WJBF) – The Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities says opioid related overdoses have killed more than 650,000 people over the last 25 years.
State commissioner Kevin Tanner says part of the problem is people not properly disposing off drugs to avoid addiction.

“The number one way people are being addicts is in medicine cabinets. It is someone having a valid legal prescription and not disposing that properly and leaving it in the cabinet for their child, grand child, a family member or someone else to get,” said Commissioner Kevin Tanner.

Commissioner Tanner oversees the Georgia Opioid Crisis Abatement Trust — and says Georgia will receive $638 million dollars in settlements after a national lawsuit settlement with major pharmaceutical distributors. Georgia can count a 207% increase in opioid overdoses between 2010 and 2020.

“We want to have an emphasis on becoming addicted to an opioid to begin with. We also want to help people to help with recovery and have recovery efforts. We want to have treatment efforts and harm reduction and reduce the harm they are doing to themselves or their community,” said Tanner.

The commissioner says drug overdoses on meth, cocaine, heroine and fentanyl simply start from an injury prescription and then can spiral out of control.

“I think lawmakers being able to focused on where can we implement laws and policy changes that will help prevent opioid addiction to start with is going to be important and making it easier and stay in treatment and making sure we have the ability to build the facilities in the state and treat individuals who are addicted to opioids,” said Tanner.

The trust will award $50 million dollars in grants this fall and will launch a dashboard at www.gaopioidtrust.org for transparency.

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