Ohio Attorney General steps into legal battle over $1B opioid settlement distribution
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has asked a court to let his office intervene in a legal battle on behalf of the organization tasked with distributing more than half of the $1 billion settlement reached with national opioid distributors.
The request comes a day after a judge in Franklin County refused to issue an order to temporarily prevent Ohio from spending $58.3 million in opioid settlement funds.
Harm Reduction Ohio is suing the OneOhio Recovery Foundation, the entity designated to coordinate the distribution of a settlement reached with national opioid distributors.
OneOhio Recovery Foundation will receive 55% of Ohio’s $1 billion opioid settlement over 18 years. The other 45% goes directly to the state and local governments.
Harm Reduction Ohio describes itself as a non-profit human rights organization working to improve the health and happiness of people who use drugs.
Attorneys for Harm Reduction Ohio sought to stop spending the settlement funds, arguing that OneOhio has held dozens of meetings since May 2022, the last six of which violated Judge Mark Serrott’s order to comply with the state’s open meetings law.
After Tuesday’s court hearing, Judge Serrott ordered the OneOhio opioid settlement board to start complying with the Ohio Open Meetings Act but denied Harm Reduction’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have prevented OneOhio from distributing funds or appointing an Executive Director.
In his motion to intervene in the case, Attorney General Yost writes, "The opioid scourge that has swept Ohio is a public health crisis greater than any drug epidemic that we have faced. And the Foundation is tasked to distribute much-needed funding.”
Adding that the money must flow to public purposes as quickly as possible, Yost claims that Harm Reduction Ohio’s lawsuit goes beyond the question of whether the foundation is subject to Ohio's open meetings law.
Addressing Harm Reductions request to prevent OneOhio temporary restraining order request, Yost writes: "Requests such as these if granted, would paralyze the Foundation and delay or even stop the delivery of badly needed funds for local Ohio communities to combat opioid addiction."
Harm Reduction argues that decisions made at OneOhio meetings that violate open meetings law are automatically invalidated.
OneOhio hopes to start taking grant applications for the settlement funding in June with plans to disburse the money on October 1.
A court hearing to determine whether open meetings law violations invalidate what was done in secret will be heard at a preliminary injunction hearing, now scheduled for July 12 and July 14.
