Most members of a committee to advise the Mississippi Legislature how the state should spend the bulk of its national opioid settlement share have been finalized days after the appointments were due.
Among the voting council members is James Moore, an addiction recovery advocate in Hattiesburg. He said his local lawmaker, Republican House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, called him Wednesday and asked him, on behalf of Speaker of the House Jason White, to serve as a voting member of the council.
Earlier that day, Mississippi Today published a story about how Moore and other parents who’ve lost their children to addiction were upset that local city and county governments were spending opioid settlement money on items not directly related to recovery and without their input.
Moore said he is looking forward to hearing from others with expertise addressing addiction as a public health problem — like those who’ve struggled with and treated substance use disorder.
“I’ll be reaching out to those folks to try to give me direction, so that I can pass that on to the decision makers,” he said.
The people tasked with appointing the advisors have submitted 13 of the 15 members who will vote on state opioid settlement grant proposals, and 21 out of 22 nonvoting seats, according to the Mississippi Attorney General’s office.
State lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2767 in the spring, and Gov. Tate Reeves signed it into law April 10. The law calls for creation of an advisory council that would develop a grant application process to spend an estimated $259 million of national opioid settlement money the state has been receiving. The committee is asked to make recommendations of which grants to approve, and legislators can accept or reject those.
The law instructed a variety of powerful Mississippians to appoint the council members by last Monday, 60 days after the bill was signed into law. Reeves, who did not respond to questions about the advisory committee, is responsible for assigning the last two unassigned voting members. State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney is supposed to nominate the last nonvoting council seat — a representative of the state’s private addiction treatment facilities.
Mississippi State Health Department spokesperson Greg Flynn said that Edney would send his nominee to the attorney general’s office last week, but the seat was unassigned as of Friday afternoon, according to the Attorney General’s office.
Another member of the voting block, Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones, said he would like to see projects that prioritize addiction prevention education for the general public and overdose response tools for law enforcement officers, like the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
“This is something our communities are plagued with,” he said. “By having law enforcement personnel at the table, we have firsthand knowledge of the effects opioids have in the community.”
As members of the advisory committee, Moore and Jones’ recommendations will still need legislative approval. Moore knows this, and he said people tend to listen to his ideas when he shares his family’s experiences.
“I’m not speaking about statistics and numbers,” he said. “I’m speaking [as] an individual. I’m speaking by an empty chair at our table.”
The law says the council’s first meeting must be held by July 9.
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