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Stephens County pledged $27,900 to the Mountain Judicial Circuit to assist in the opioid crisis.
The use of heroin, fentanyl, and other opioids has increased in Stephens County by almost twice of what it was three years ago.
That’s the report from the Mountain Judicial Circuit (MJC) in a letter to the Stephens County government relating to drug court.
The MJC stated that drug court participants reported that opioids were their drug of choice rising from 27.5 percent in 2020 to 54 percent at the beginning of 2023.
The letter was requesting $27,946 a year for the next five years from Opioid Settlement funds to address the county’s opioid crisis.
County commissioners at a Sept. 26 meeting approved the obligation, but just for one year and not five.
County administrator Christian Hamilton on Tuesday said that it also is uncertain if those funds would be pulled from the opioid settlement or from Drug Abuse Treatment and Education (DATE) funds that Hamilton said funnel through the court system and are only available for uses that generally match how the opioid settlement funds can be used.
“They (MJC) will be invocing us on the actual items,” Hamilton said.
Divided out, the MJC letter stated that in Stephens County, the $27,946 would be:
• $8,000 for opioid addiction treatment group for one year.
• $8,000 for family education group for one year.
• $11,946 for for 100 NARCAN kits that reverse opioid overdoses.
The MJC also requested funding from the other two counties in the circuit, Habersham and Rabun.
Those requests included $1,000 in Habersham for “Vivitol injections”.
Writing about those injections, the MJC stated that they are an “opioid antagonist” preventing the brain from feeling the effects.
“What this means to the layman is that it reduces drug cravings in the individual, but it also blocks the individual’s ability to get any kind of high from alcohol or opioids.”
In Rabun County, the funding request was for a different opioid antagonist to medically withdraw from addiction with the help of a physician.
“This request fals within the allowable expenses for the Opioid Settlement Funds and would make a big difference for those struggling with opioid use disorders within our community,” wrote accountability courts director Beth Pelaccio.
Drug court has been ongoing in Stephens County since 2012 with 54 percent of its participants graduating.