Spartanburg County wants to use $2 million from opioid settlement to treat addicted inmates (2024)

SPARTANBURG — A yearslong process of getting money from the pharmaceutical industry to combat the ongoing opioid epidemic could be bearing fruit in Spartanburg County.

County Council members on Aug. 5 unanimously requested around $2 million to help treat inmates at the county detention center who are addicted to opioids.

If approved, the county would get the money by Oct. 1.

The cash can be traced to 2019 when state Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the nation’s largest drug shipment companies, accusing them of feeding an ongoing opioid crisis.

With that lawsuit, the state got more than $300 million in 2022 to combat the scourge as part of a $26 billion national settlement with some of the biggest pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies in the nation.

The plan was for that money to be shared among South Carolina’s state agencies, cities and counties to combat abuse of the highly addictive drugs.

Greenville County tapped into the statewide fund in 2023 to create an opioid resource team.

Now, Spartanburg County has asked for its slice of the pie.

“Here’s an opportunity for us to put a process and a program in place that will make a difference for Spartanburg County,” Councilman David Britt said. He thinks everyone in the county has been affected by the opioid epidemic.

The county suffered 154 opioid deaths in 2022, a 440 percent increase from 2015, according to the county.

With the millions from the settlement, the county plans to create a program at its detention center to treat inmates suffering from addiction. Around 650 current inmates have been identified with opioid use disorder, according to the county.

Dr. Melissa Fritsche, who treats addiction, presented the plan to council members and said the program to help inmates would be the most impactful way to use the money.

“Treating these folks, I believe, is going to change the landscape of drug use in the county, not just inside the detention center,” Fritsche said. “Currently, we’re not providing that kind of treatment, and then we’re talking about releasing these folks back to the community.”

The funds would be used to hire a nurse practitioner for the detention center, purchase drugs that counteract opioids’ effects, educate the public and more.

Money from multiple settlement agreements should fund the program for over a decade.

“Over the next 12 to 15 years we will receive recurring payments, per the settlement terms, that will be on the order of a couple million dollars or more each year. That’s likely to grow over time,” Alverson said.

Once the county gets the money, it has to spend at least $3.3 million by Dec. 31, 2025, to not risk losing the money to other parties in the state.

Councilman Monier Abusaft said the program is an important tool to help the Spartanburg community, outlining a vicious cycle of impoverished people getting addicted and then looking to crime to fuel their addiction.

“You don’t willpower your way out of an opioid addiction, it just doesn’t happen that way,” Abusaft said. “So much of petty crime isn’t because people are evil-hearted.”

Fritsche said she hopes in the future that she does not have to treat addiction.

“I continue in every area of medicine that I have worked in to try to work myself out of a job,” Fritsche said. “There is nothing that I would like more than five years from now to not be treating addiction.”