On Thursday, the state House unanimously passed a bill introduced by Representative Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville, that specifies how $43,138,650 from Alabama’s Opioid Treatment and Abatement Fund will be spent.
“Typically we would move this with the budget package, but since the budget is upstairs, we want to move it through this body, then send it upstairs, to travel with the budget,” Reynolds explained.
The funding is the result of multibillion dollar settlements from pharmaceutical distributors, manufacturers and pharmacies for lawsuits filed by state and local governments alleging the companies were in part responsible for the national opioid crisis.
Under the terms of the settlements, funds are supposed to be used by state government to help alleviate the effects of the opioid crisis, by financing programs like naloxone trainings or opioid abatement research.
House Bill 487, like last year’s bill directing opioid settlement funds, directs the majority of the money toward the state Department of Mental Health, with the Administration Office of Courts as the second largest single recipient. The Administrative Office of Courts oversees the state’s specialty courts, which focus on cases where offenders have underlying conditions like drug addiction or mental health issues.
“Members, as we always do, we will allocate $26,360,000 to the Alabama Department of Mental Health for the grants, for the providers within your districts, and that’s related to the prevention, the treatment and recovery of those addicted to opioids,” Reynolds stated before the vote to approve HB487 was held. “Then we’ve got a lot of education partners and a couple of a new partners, the district attorneys and our sheriffs in every county, and they’ll now do education in each county throughout Alabama.”
In response to questions from Representative Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, Reynolds explained that there were around twenty grants for various projects approved last year. The list of awardees includes a variety of religious, secular and educational organizations focused on prevention, recovery and treatment.
The 2025 annual report of the Alabama Opioid Overdose and Addiction Council additionally highlights that the state distributed over 48,000 naloxone kits in the last fiscal year.
If the bill passes the state Senate and is signed into law as is, the $43.1 million will be divvied up in the following way:
- Board of Pardons and Paroles: $1,500,000 earmarked for “additional recovery and facility services”
- Department of Mental Health: $26,360,000 in total
- $2,000,000 specifically for Medicaid funding
- $1,000,000 for residential detox
- $4,000,000 to fund the 988 Crisis Line
- $8,930,000 for various grants
- $7,500,000 for co-occurring civil commitment beds
- $1,300,000 for the state’s anti-opioid marketing campaign
- $500,000 for adolescent substance abuse treatment
- And $130,000 for “medical medicine education by the Alabama Society of Addiction Medicine”
- Auburn University: $1,900,000 earmarked for expanding their college of pharmacy
- University of Alabama at Birmingham: $2,000,000 earmarked for their psychiatry residency program
- USA Health University of South Alabama: $1,100,000 for various drug mitigation programs
- Administration Office of Courts: $3,000,000 for speciality courts
- District Attorneys: $2,100,000 split evenly between all districts
- Child Advocacy Centers: $2,136,650 for “counseling sessions, family advocacy sessions, and forensic interviews”
- Office of Prosecution Services: $1,092,000 earmarked for addiction awareness and opioid treatment of inmates
- Department of Forensic Sciences: $450,000 for improving fentanyl detection instruments
- Department of Senior Services for Seniors and Grandparents Programs: $500,000
- Department of Corrections: $1,000,000 earmarked for programs meant to help inmates recover from addiction
