Episode #100 High Truths on Drugs and Addition with Sara Whaley on Opioid Settlement Best Practices

Sara Whaley worked on a model to make sure opioid settlement dollars are distributed fairly and effectively. The  historic pattern with tobacco has been: Health Claims - Normalize Use - Health Harms - Lawsuits. Then again with Opioids: Health Claims - Normalize High Dose Use - Health Harms Lawsuits. Big Pharma will be paying $32 Billion for lying about the harms of chronic and high dose prescription opioids that killed people. Are lawsuit a deterrent for future public health lies or is lying about public health a good business model? What have we learned from tobacco settlement dollars that can be applied to opioid settlement dollars? Is Big Marijuana next to follow the pattern of Health Claims - Normalize Use - Health Harms and Lawsuits

Sara Whaley, MSW, MPH, MA

Sara Whaley is research faculty at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is the Program Manager of the Bloomberg Overdose Prevention Initiative. Sara is a member of the team at JHSPH that coordinated the creation of the Principles for The Use of Funds From The Opioid Litigation and is a member of the Working Group that coordinates efforts to support state and local governments in the effective use of litigation dollars. She began her career providing direct service to individuals with behavioral health needs and those who use drugs. She brings this experience to her research and to projects providing technical assistance to state governments and local service providers. Her goal is to use data to inform effective policy that improves the health and well-being of individuals who use drugs and their families

Resources:

www.opioidprinciples.jhsph.edu

https://www.opioidsettlementtracker.com/settlementspending

https://www.nashp.org/how-states-administering-opioid-settlement-funds/