{"id":31880,"date":"2023-09-08T16:07:41","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T22:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/2-million-goes-to-southern-ute-ute-mountain-ute-tribes-from-opioid-settlements\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:47:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:47:59","slug":"2-million-goes-to-southern-ute-ute-mountain-ute-tribes-from-opioid-settlements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/2-million-goes-to-southern-ute-ute-mountain-ute-tribes-from-opioid-settlements\/","title":{"rendered":"$2 million goes to Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute tribes from opioid settlements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The state of Colorado has reached settlements with the manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioid pharmaceuticals totaling over $740 million. (Associated Press file photo)<\/span>onset<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Thursday that the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe will each receive one-time distributions of funds from the state\u2019s settlements with opioid manufacturers.<\/p>\n

The Southern Utes will receive more than $1.27 million, and the Ute Mountain Utes will receive more than $740,000 for drug treatment, recovery, prevention and education programs.<\/p>\n

The funds are drawn from the state\u2019s share, about 10% of the total settlement amount. Of the remaining funds, 60% will go to regional councils, 20% to local governments and 10% to opioid-related infrastructure needs statewide.<\/p>\n

The tribes must use the funds for accepted opioid abatement purposes that are outlined in the joint framework the Colorado Department of Law and local governments signed in August 2021.<\/p>\n

The state has secured over $740 million in monetary damages from the companies that manufactured and distributed prescription opioid pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Opioid Abatement Council oversees settlement funds and makes sure the distributions comply with settlement terms and joint framework. So far, close to $43 million has been distributed to 19 regional opioid abatement councils and local governments to combat each community\u2019s opioid crisis.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health awarded Colorado with one of its inaugural Excellence in the Application of Opioid Litigation Principles Awards for the state\u2019s planning and regional collaboration.<\/p>\n

\u201cTribal communities suffered some of the worst consequences of the opioid crisis of any population in the country,\u201d Weiser said in a news release. \u201cNo amount of money will be enough to address the outsized impact of the opioid crisis on tribal communities, but the funds from Colorado\u2019s share of opioid settlements will provide critical resources to the Ute Mountain Utes and Southern Utes to save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart said the tribe likely will use the funds to build up resources for people returning from inpatient treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t have a huge impact, but it does help,\u201d Heart said of the funds.<\/p>\n

He said the tribe is also in the process of working with the Southern Utes to build an inpatient treatment facility in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s here, we know it\u2019s there, and substance abuse is something that\u2019s faced a lot of tribes across this country,\u201d Heart said. \u201cThis opioid settlement is going to really help out tribes and different programs to help out their tribal members that are facing these challenges with substance abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a> and cczarnecki@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018It won\u2019t have a huge impact, but it does help,\u2019 Ute Mountain Ute tribal chairman says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[616,28,1025,2638],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-addiction","tag-headlines","tag-law-and-justice","tag-opioids"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81597,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31880\/revisions\/81597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31880"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}