Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Friday a distribution of funds to the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention recovered by the state from its settlement with McKinsey & Company for the global management & consulting firm’s role in the opioid crisis in Alabama.
In a meeting Friday, ADCANP Director Sallye Longshore was awarded $1.5 million to “invest in reducing adverse childhood experiences driven by parental addiction to opioids.”, according to the Attorney General’s office.
“Children are the invisible victims of the opioid epidemic,” Longshore said in a statement Friday. “Not only does parental substance abuse often lead to the abuse and neglect of children, but abused and neglected children tend to grow up to be substance-dependent adults. Our goal at ADCANP is to break this cycle and we have developed the evidence-based programs to do just that. Attorney General Marshall believes in what we do and we are grateful for his financial investment in our mission to strengthen Alabama’s families.”
In a statement Friday, Attorney General Steve Marshall said that while ADCANP is a relatively small agency, it is charged with a critical mission to strengthen families. “I firmly believe that strong families are the answer to nearly every societal ill that our state is wrestling with, not the least of which is the opioid crisis,” Marshall said. “Sallye and her team are passionate about what they do and I am very pleased to be able to support their work in some small way.”
The Attorney General’s office also mentioned state data showing the large percentage of children enter foster care in Alabama due to parental substance abuse and that child neglect accounts for over 60 percent of child removals from Alabama homes.
A previous sum of awarded funds, also totaling $1.5 million, was awarded to state specialty courts this week, with an additional $2.95 million to state forensic labs also awarded Wednesday.
In February of 2019, Alabama joined a multi-state lawsuit and eventual settlement, totaling $574 million, with McKinsey & Company earlier this year. The company consulted with pharmaceutical companies, namely OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, to create effective marketing schemes for opioid products and increase profits from opioid sales.
According to the Attorney General’s office, $9 million in total will be awarded to Alabama from the settlement–, $7.6 million this year.
