Dozens of lawsuits have been settled against those responsible for America’s opioid crisis — from drug manufacturers to pharmacies — resulting in some of the largest payouts in the country’s history.
Nearly $57 billion from legal settlements will eventually land in the coffers of state and local governments, according to a national tracking service, money that will be used to combat the ongoing epidemic.
More than $10 billion of that has already been paid out. Boulder County is set to receive $31.5 million through 2038; all of it will flow through the Boulder County Region Opioid Council (BROC), a group of elected officials and municipal staff from around the county.
While the money is an opportunity to tackle some of the damage wrought by addiction, it also represents a huge logistical challenge as officials scramble to handle the influx of cash. The resulting system has been praised and critiqued.
Funds ‘belong to citizens’
Disbursements totalled $1.8 million in the first year, 2022, and $3.2 million in 2023 and 2024. The 2025-2026 funding cycle was the first to implement a new competitive process, with over $3.95 million distributed to two dozen programs focused on prevention and education ($1.35 million), harm reduction ($906,341), treatment ($350,000) and recovery ($1.1 million).
See yearly opioid settlement spending, 2023-2025
Three programs were directly funded; that is, awarded grants without going through the competitive bidding process. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office received $110,000 for medically assisted treatment of substance use; The Works, the county’s harm reduction program, was awarded $330,000; and $110,000 went to COAP to provide treatment and other services to incarcerated individuals with substance use issues.
Those allocations will be reviewed next year, according to aid Kelly Veit, Boulder County’s opioid abatement program manager.
The 18-member evaluation committee tried to spread grants across the four focus areas and geographically, Veit said. How many and what groups of people served by programs were also considered.
There is additional responsibility on the county to make sure the funds are widely disbursed, because each local government is entitled to a certain amount. For the past three years, municipalities have elected to pool funds and centralize distribution under BROC, Veit explained.
“These funds don’t belong to Boulder County,” she said. “They belong to the citizens of Longmont, Jamestown, Nederland, Boulder. With that comes additional fiduciary responsibility [to make sure] the money is going back to the communities.”
‘Nowhere near enough’
While other states have been criticized for a lack of transparency and public engagement and alleged misuse of funds, Colorado has been lauded for its approach to doling out the $750 million it expects to receive over 18 years. The state’s public dashboard got a shoutout on an episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight about opioid settlement funds.
Boulder County’s own process has not been entirely without controversy. In the first year of spending, $80,000 was spent on law enforcement tools to analyze drug content and hack into phones. Other states like California have since banned such tools from being purchased with opioid settlement money.
The current funding cycle has drawn criticism from groups that were not funded, and for the amount of money that went to government programs — about 45%, according to Veit.
At a mid-January meeting of the Boulder County Substance Use Advisory Group (SUAG), community members peppered Veit and her colleague, Tucker Eurman, with questions about the process and its results, saying the allocations left huge gaps in services and threatened the viability of local organizations that did not receive funds.
“The gaps that their funding decisions for awards have left will be huge,” one local recovery professional who did not wish to give their name, citing a pending meeting with county officials, wrote in response to emailed questions. “The programs that they gave huge awards to are barely scraping the surface [of] our needs for opioid overdose prevention and saving lives.”
Veit said the competitive bidding process has been “examined top to bottom,” and the county stands behind it, including how much money went to government agencies.
“There are certain circumstances where the government is the only entity holding these up,” she said, referencing programs for individuals in the criminal justice system. “The only way to support the strategy is to support the government.”
Veit attributes some of residents’ upset to the fact that, despite the windfall, there is simply not enough money to go around. The county received $8.6 million worth of requests — nearly $5 million more than it had to give.
“These funds have an extra layer of passion and community scrutiny, which I totally understand,” she said. “The unfortunate reality is these funds are nowhere near enough to support all of the demand and need from the fallout of the opioid epidemic.”