{"id":43830,"date":"2021-11-10T00:21:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T07:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-commissioners-tap-region-9-to-help-create-opioid-group\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:16:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:16:04","slug":"la-plata-county-commissioners-tap-region-9-to-help-create-opioid-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-commissioners-tap-region-9-to-help-create-opioid-group\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County commissioners tap Region 9 to help create opioid group"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"This
This map shows the regions of the state that would receive opioid settlement money under a framework announced by the attorney general\u2019s office on Thursday. (Courtesy of Colorado Office of the Attorney General)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

La Plata County commissioners on Tuesday approved a grant from the Colorado Department of Law, kickstarting the region\u2019s opioid settlement distribution framework.<\/p>\n

Almost all of the $18,000 Small Dollar Grant Award from the Department of Law\u2019s Division of Community Engagement Opioid Response Unit will go to Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado to help create a regional council for the state\u2019s opioid settlement.<\/p>\n

Region 9 will also help develop a two-year plan as required by the Colorado Opioids Settlement Memorandum of Understanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur role is to help facilitate meetings and organize (the regional council) so (local governments) don\u2019t have to,\u201d said Laura Lewis Marchino, executive director of Region 9.<\/p>\n

La Plata County signed onto the statewide opioid settlement on Oct. 26, after Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser agreed to a $26 billion multistate deal with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson in August.<\/p>\n

Colorado expects to receive about $400 million from the settlement. Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the Colorado Attorney General\u2019s Office, said Tuesday\u2019s ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court overturning a $465 million opioid judgment has no impact on the settlement funds.<\/p>\n

If all local governments across the state sign the settlement, Region 17, which includes La Plata, Montezuma, Archuleta, San Juan and Dolores counties, would receive $4 million over 18 or 19 years, Marchino said.<\/p>\n

All of the local governments in Region 17 are on track to agree to the settlement, she said.<\/p>\n

Once the counties and municipalities in the region have signed, they will create a regional council and come up with bylaws and an intergovernmental agreement for selecting board members and managing the settlement money.<\/p>\n

The governance board will consist of public health, human services, law enforcement, county court and other local officials. The regional council will also have non-voting members so community members with experience with the opioid crisis can participate, Marchino said.<\/p>\n

The memorandum of understanding requires that a regional council be created by April.<\/p>\n

Once the framework is laid, Region 9 will help the council develop an initial two-year plan for the funding.<\/p>\n

Marchino said governments have already been discussing pooling the money to go toward a substance treatment facility or medically assisted treatment programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey haven\u2019t formally voted, but they want to pool all their money to fill the gap with something we don\u2019t have at all,\u201d Marchino said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Juan, Dolores, all of the small communities, they want to put it in the regional pool for a bigger impact,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Region 9 is also working with local governments to begin a study to identify what opioid treatment and prevention projects are most needed and feasible.<\/p>\n

The regional council will likely use that study, which has congressionally designated funding but has yet to be approved, as a guide for determining how the settlement money will be used, Marchino said.<\/p>\n

For Marchino, the next steps in Colorado\u2019s opioid settlement are some of the most exciting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like that there\u2019s this regional collaboration,\u201d she said. \u201cThe communities really want to work together, and this money is helping them make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

ahannon@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Council will guide how settlement money is used in Southwest Colorado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1512,3131],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-government","tag-prescription-drugs"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43830","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=43830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85862,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43830\/revisions\/85862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43830"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}